Dipping A Toe In The Public Pool of Consciousness

Brrr. It is cold here. Or maybe it's just me. I've been stewing in my own stagnant warm puddles - though I am proud to say, not of my own bodily making - and now by contrast the outside world feels cold. Will they love me again? Will they be amused by my musings or disgusted by my unabashed need for their affection? Oh, these elusive "they", how I've missed "them". "Missed" them. "I've" missed them. I have.

Right now I am at my job. At my work. Sitting at my desk, in my office. Okay, it's not just my office - I share it with my boss. I like that there are two big windows and green plants, but I don't like that my desk is positioned with my back towards the door and the center of the room - making me feel always vulnerable. I've become a master web browser window collapser by now, with the ears of a bat. (Note: my ears are in fact a little pointy and bat-like - a source of great pride, as they make me look elfish.) The point is, as all things in my life, my situation here is quite imperfect. Thus, the guilt that blogging on company time should engender in any conscientious worker is kept at a bare minimum. I'm happier here than I've been at any job before, so I relish the tiny guilt pangs that seep through the general buzzing ennui in my brain. They make me feel authentic and sincere, like I'm a good person who just sometimes does not so good things. You know? The misunderstood bad girl who blogs at work.

I decided it's important for me to document my comings and goings after all. I realized this the other day when someone quoted me something I said to them in conversation, espousing a view, or perhaps even a belief, that I never remembered discussing with said person in the first place. Goes to show you how important beliefs are to me! I have them and all - at least I think I do - but I never seem to really use them as valid criteria for choosing which people I interact with, for instance. The point is, my life is moving at an ever-increasing pace, and I don't want to miss any important turns. Not that anything is particularly important. Or is everything important? I just don't know!

The main struggle I seem to be having internally these days is one between a life of material asceticism and the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, and a life of so-called success, as measured by layman's standards: status, prestige, disposable income, the works. Right now I am straddling the fence between the two, and all I have to show for it is a chafed crotch. It's really a matter of poor time management, isn't it? And isn't this rambling entry a case-in-point? Even if I am choosing to spend this time allotted for work on NOT work-related activities, I could be doing something else more "productive". Like, re-working my resume, or uploading the most recent podcast, or writing jokes, or looking into finally having my comedy website built, or looking for other jobs, or reading the news, or any number of things that can yield a measurable reward. But no. I have this mental itch to COMMUNICATE, to SHARE, to CONNECT - but with WHOM?! WHY?!

I am as lonely as ever. And that's all there is to it.

Sacking Up

I've been having the adventure of my life. Every single day has felt magical. What sort of drug am I on, eh? What is it that keeps me so happy, even when things don't seem so peachy? Good question, Mariya. I'm glad you asked. Why, certainly, Mariya!

I mean, this is going to sound totally insane and egomaniacal, but I'm kind of awesome. I'm very awesome in certain very specific ways that have almost no practical application in the "real world", but nonetheless, I am a master.

After years and years of suffering from crippling, never-leave-the-house anxiety and shame, I have suddenly learned to master my brain; to direct the flow of neurons only through the passageways of my choosing. Each time a synapse fires, it's because General Me bade it so. Every time an emotion floods my bloodstream, it's because I've admitted it. It goes without saying that I PREFER to feel good, I mean, who wouldn't? So here I am, happy as a clam. Wait, can clams experience happiness? Why not happy as a mussel? Who makes these absurd rules we all live by?

Things aren't exactly perfect. It's very difficult, for instance, to not feel at least a tinge of heartache when a person rejects me. And rejection can come in all forms. Any breach of contact - if the contact is enjoyable - feels as it should, like a tiny laceration on your soul. But then I remember that not everyone feels so freely and willingly. Not everyone can make room in their heart for everyone - even the people who don't fit within the contrived roles society writes for us. What motivates me more than anything is meaningful communication and learning. Sex dynamics often muddy that experience, and rob me of potential friendship and intellectual companionship. It's not like I'm all alone - of course not. My world is practically teeming with people I love, but it's not like it ever stops. The people never stop. There are so many many people out there, and they are all a part of each other and a part of me. It's dizzying to imagine the implications. But I don't live in this idealistic abstraction. I live around people who are afraid to tell each other how they feel. They are afraid to be alone, so they alienate one another preemptively. How are any of us supposed to get to that ultimate intimacy of which we all dream if we can't even begin to understand what we really want ourselves? How can another person complete us if we're not ready to fully examine what might be missing? So I'm on a mission to not waste a moment, but figure it out. Figure out how to perfect communication.

Impending NOT Doom

Circuitous motion.

No, not circuitous. More like endless waves. Crests and troughs of emotion through time and space, interwoven with a constant nagging suspicion that something big is missing.
Family, love, friendship - all the things that anchor you as a person - are missing from me. This isn't to discount my nuclear family of parents and sister (and beautiful feline babies). This isn't to say that my new blossoming friendships are unsatisfying. I'm just tired of feeling so anonymous. I have so many daily interactions, but am never left with a clear understanding of what any of them mean. I just want someone to know me. I just want to find a place to really call home.

The more I live this way, the less I am open to really caring about someone. I crave it more than anything, but when I'm faced with an opportunity to do it, I shrink back in fear. Fear of having my heart handed to be on a plate after it's been run through a meat grinder. Fear of being bored. Fear of being forced to feel ashamed of myself, of holding my mind reined in, of letting my dreams die.

I'm tired of cynics.

I won't let myself become one.

Happiness is just around the corner. I can feel it.

Until then, I have batteries and "Californication" on Netflix instant viewing. And a silly dream that miracles can happen when you least expect.

Oh boy

People can really surprise you sometimes.

In a good way.

*sigh*

Vagina (Wisdom) Teeth

Kayla and I are writing a book. I don't know the title yet. I don't know if it's going to be one continuous flow of a narrative/account, or more like anecdotal essays, but the theme is going to be our common experience: extricating ourselves from bad abusive marriages that we got into way too young, and having to deal with the world newly alone and scared, but how that's still more satisfying than the horrible lives we would have had if we'd stayed married but comfortable. And we use the term "comfortable" very loosely. I mean, what's so comfortable about coming home every day and dodging insults or various projectiles thrown at you in anger? Nothing. It fucking sucks.

I managed to carve out some time to read the news today, for the first time in weeks. Boy, what a mistake THAT was. I mean, not really. I personally found it fascinating that Justin Bieber is starting his own nail polish line, or that some asshole actually threw a book at Obama at a recent rally. But there were also nonstop stories about murders and violent crimes of all sorts, and teenage suicides, and bullying, and just people behaving atrociously toward one another. This is so disheartening to me. Something is really amiss in the world when everyone is feeling so frazzled all the time, and has no idea how to process emotions, letting them all turn into aggression and fear. This isn't just some vague general feeling, either. I see it manifest itself every day on an interpersonal level too. People are afraid to care about one another. And, by the same token, some broken people use faux, generic affection to prey upon those they perceive to be weaker, to manipulate and control them. I don't even know what I find more bearable. I think I'd rather have all-out aggression than some of the twisted mindfucky soul leeching I've had to endure.

Believe me, I don't like to think in stereotypes, and I've always been drawn to men as friends, so this isn't a typical woman's complaint.. but what in the world is wrong with you people?! Seriously! Like having a penis excuses you from having common decency or integrity! My opinions of people I've admired and respected have drastically, let us say, evolved of late. And it seems like the nicer a guy believes himself to be, the more grotesque his hypocrisy and selfishness ultimately is. And GOD, am I tired of pity parties. Psychologically sound explanations for complete lapses in ethical consciousness. All of it. Grow up!

Like, I know life is turning out very disappointingly, when this actually starts to make sense:



It's like the crazy lady is speaking from experience.

I love that she's dressed like a librarian, has the eyes of a meth-head, and an obvious talent for writing erotica.

Will I become like that lady?

Here I go admitting too much about myself again.

I just did yoga, you see. It helps a great deal with feelings that otherwise would be unbearable. And also you feel like just for one more day you've done your part to fight the battle against unwarranted size increases. I can't afford to go shopping all the time, you know.

No, but for realsies. I want to teach you yoga. I had a blast instructing my sister. My favorite moment is when I adjust a person's pose to where it's supposed to REALLY be and their eyes start bulging out of their heads because FUCK it hurts muscles you didn't even know you had... (I know, it's still relatively new to me) Well, that moment is priceless.

My right shoulder hurts.

Night.

Blue Machine

My heart feels like it's locked in one of those medieval torture devices, with the spikes inside, and it just keeps pressing tighter and tighter.

Could be all the horrendous fatty food I've been craving almost robotically the past few days. I guess my body is trying to build a nice layer of blubber to get me through the harsh winter. But how can I grow the emotional blubber I need to sustain my soul?

Spoke to my ex-husband today. So trippy and weird. The person who used to be dearest to me is now for all intents and purposes an awkward stranger.

So it goes.

Life is a series of meaningless vignettes. Or, rather, there is meaning sealed into each one, but they don't necessarily relate to one another, or flow in any sensible way. Life is like a goddamned indie art flick. There's all this emotion and angst and beauty, bubbling just beneath the surface, but try to make others understand it, or garner some real universal meaning, and you fail. That's why Hollywood movies will never go out of style. It's nice to be able to pretend, at least for a little while, as your eyes are glued to the screen, that things make sense. That stories have beginnings and middles and ends. That it isn't all just one big clusterfucky soup we're all swimming in blindly.

Saturday night after my unexciting comedy show in Columbia, MD, Kayla and I met a trio of "revolutionaries", as they called themselves. They were the strangest, most mis-matched group of people I've ever seen together, on a late-night outing no less. One was a 70-something-year-old man who was obsessed with my feet and my hair, another was a short greasy-haired artsy-bearded weasel who was pretty damn talkative and entertaining, the third a tall Viking of a creature covered in tattoos, with a shaved head. We shared some surprisingly affectionate moments, right at the bar of Chadwick's, as Pete looked on.

He turned out to be this guy:

http://www.lowerbranch.com/artists/christopheranway/




Incredibly talented. Quiet. Punched out Andy Dick at a bar in San Francisco. What a life.

I don't expect to hear from him again. *sigh*

I just want to get through this week and get the hell out of here. Really looking forward to going to New England with Kayla Thursday night.

I don't know what I would do if it wasn't for her, always listening to my whining, going to stupid open mics with me, making me feel not alone.

I hope I can be a good friend to her.

I need to go to yoga.

Let The Sun Shine

I feel animated and alert and kind of thrilled.

I just watched the latest Hulu episode of The Simpsons and while it wasn't necessarily LOL-inducing, it made me feel somehow excited about life again. I mean, it wasn't just the episode or anything. All day today I've been kind of teetering on the edge of a delirium.

The episode, in any case, before I so rudely interrupted myself, was about micro-financing and Facebook and different ways that people interact with money. Lately I am consumed with thinking about money, like most people in this country, and I think I am tired of pretending that making money doesn't matter to me. It suddenly matters to me a great deal and that is scary/exciting to observe. Maybe because I've never stood so realistically close to actually making it. My new job is providing a wealth of information and opportunity, and I intend to capitalize on it. My jellyfish-like state of mind feels good. Jellyfish don't have minds, I don't think, but they themselves are Zen incarnate. They just go with the flow. They don't worry about the consequences of their movements. Their place in the ocean doesn't matter to them. They are simply designed to survive as long as they can. I mean, they can always get eaten or wash up on the shore, where they can sting random beach goers, causing their friends to helpfully urinate on them... but that's beside the point. They are pretty and floaty and unabashedly unique, and my brain is becoming more and more like a jellyfish each day.

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

I am going to chisel out the truth from life. That is my mission.

Truth can only exist where there is love, though. The truth can only hurt if people don't really love one another. And I mean all people. Really. Love.

I just want to be clear so that last night's post doesn't come off too venomous. It was obviously a whimper of defeat, but also a defiant cry. To myself, more than anything. My experience is real, and I am still capable of being the me I was before any of this happened - the comedy, the heartbreak, everything. Writing has been my way of life since I can remember. No, that's not true. I never really had the desire to write for fun back in "Zee Mahzer Land". It was the English language that seduced me. That's when everything began to take on a narrative form. For me, to write is to exist. No matter how seemingly nonsensical, no matter how base or crass - it helps us shape the great human story, forever preserved in time. I am always puzzled by the depths of the human psyche, and the greatly varying degrees to which people are willing to explore them.

Things people always tend to have major hang-ups about:

1) sex

2) relationships

Any other thing a person claims is at the root of his/her existence is a decoy.

Look, even Mark Zuckerberg was motivated by nothing but being scorned by a girl/trying to win back the girl.

I've also found it immensely fascinating reading Clark's new book because while from his music tastes it can easily be gathered that he IS a pensive soul, his book reveals a level of depravity I didn't expect from this quiet brooding creature. He DOES have mischievous eyes.

What I guess I am trying to say is that for an artist, there is nothing more valuable than her/his particular unique way of processing reality. How that reality gets deconstructed and presented will greatly vary from person to person, but each artist will feel just as attached to her/his reality as the other artists to theirs. It's not really a conscious choice. It's just something that permeates deeply into your brain, and becomes a constant voice and companion.

"You exist, you exist, you exist."

"Now this is happening, and now this, and now this..."

"What does it mean? Does it mean anything? Surely it means something."

This is a long elaborate excuse for narcissism.

BEAU-TI-FUL.

I had a point somewhere...

Oh yeah. I'm gonna figure things out. Bit by bit.

In the meantime, this thing keeps growing....That seriously blows my mind.