geminiwench

I keep returning to a thing that happened at an old job.

[Memory lane... and more]
I was hired in November 2008,
for a great (boring) job doing data entry for a Medical Supply Company
right as the mortgage crash
started attacking
every
other
economic
system
in America.

I was grateful.

I had the job down in 6 weeks,
and by the time I was there 6 months
I had memorized thousands of data points
so I wouldn't have to double check my work as often.

I could fly through my day
hardly engaging my brain at all.

I was able to listen to my Zune
(I **still** prefer Zunes to iPods)
and work my 8 hours, 5 days a week,
and every other week was a mandatory Saturday shift
while my employer borrowed my eyes, hands, and uncanny ability
to quickly and accurately
do things I don't care about
while I listen to punk rock.

How very... not punk of me.

There was no upward movement in that job.
My office was 60 workers, 4 managers, and 1 regional director.
There were 4 regions in North America.

The biggest pain was how our team had to work those mandatory Saturdays
every other week.

Overtime is not enough compensation for me.

Weekends
are
priceless.

After about 6 months
I couldn't take the boredom and the overtime.

I spent the next 6 weeks studying
our companies' sorting systems, mailing systems, workflow systems,
check systems, and filing systems
looking for wasted time/effort
keeping our team's work
piling up
rather than
clearing out
every two weeks.

I asked my boss for a few small permissions...
and started making a few tweaks to my teams' workflow.

I began pre-sorting incoming mail by size
to stop our mail scanner/opener from jamming.

I then re-organized all the incoming mail
by which insurance companies sent them...
batching same-with-same
which stopped our check processing machine from jamming as often
and made hand-tallying and inputting batches easier.

(my team was payment/check processing for the Western U.S. service area of our company)

After starting my new regimen:
In 4 weeks, we didn't need a Mandatory Saturday to catch up.
In 6 weeks, ALL of our team cleared EVERY batch... EVERY DAY for a week.
In 8 weeks, our whole team became available for 30 minutes at the end of each day
to help OTHER teams with filing, follow-ups, and case-clearing.

At the end of those 8 weeks, my boss called me into her office and said
she was proud of my accomplishment
but
we were going back to the old way of doing things.

Most of my team was mad because
they missed their overtime pay
and were worried we COULD be making team-members redundant
because we were working too well...
working too fast...
specifically because the job was suddenly easier
which allowed us ALL to do more work
with less effort.

SCARY.

All it took was a lot of pre-sorting.
WHO KNEW pre-sorting could save weekends worth of time?
Me.
I knew.

Even though I HATE sorting.
But I love weekends, more.

Anyways, our new found efficiency
was inconvenient
for many people
in many ways.

They needed work to be harder,
because it felt safer and more rigorous that way.

Me? I am efficient out of laziness.
Like my honesty,
its all about making my life easy.

Some people are efficient out of Pure Hard Work.
They need sweat-equity on this planet to feel valuable.

Sailor is a Hard Worker
raised in a family of workaholics
where your job
is the most important thing in your life
no matter what your job
actually
IS.

It's admirable, really.

But it's also not my style.

I once asked Sailor how he knew something was "work".
How did he define... work?
The first time he smirked a little and told me "Force times Distance = Work"
because he's an engineer
and that's a physics Not-Joke.

When I asked again, much later and when he was more jaded he said
"It's work when I don't want to do it."

To me,
that's just describes a chore.

Is there a difference?

It seems noteworthy:
I was just offered another job....
one I've been gently currying in the background
while I watch someone's dream come true.

A friend-of-a-friend has a rich angel
who is backing his boutique business idea.

A small seat multiplex theater and event center...
and he wants an event coordinator & manager.

He specifically wants one that brings in all kinds of live acts,
is familiar with film licensing and theater pricing strategies,
and is community-driven and community-supportive.

He wants me to be his event coordinator & manager.
He finally asked.

The building is just a skeleton
wrapped in Tyvek with plumbers and electricians
ducking through plastic sheeting and plywood
installing various tubes and assorted wires
right now.

But this is where the kitchen will be,
and the bar, and the art wall
and the projection booths
and the dream is so real to him.

He's building it
whole cloth
from his dreams.

Trimming it to size
and painting it all of his favorite colors
which are:
all of them.

Today I was at my actual and current job,
in the board meeting
getting praise from assorted board members
for my regular presence
and clear reports
which felt nicely timed
after just being headhunted by someone who pays more
and listens more,
yet asks less of me overall
because he DOESN'T want me to hang out... spinning my wheels for effect.

I don't know exactly what I'm going to do, yet.

I **want** to do everything
but of course I don't want to do **everything**...
if you know what I mean.

I feel trapped in old habits.

Lamed by old injuries.

Saddled with old trinkets that have lost their meaning to me.

Stuck on advice I don't know how to take.

Sailor recently swallowed a bitter pill...
where he cannot live up his childhood image of his father's life and success.
His father is a highly sought-after RF specialist and professional EE.

Right out of college Sailor was once offered a chance to be a mechanical technician
at a winery in Northern California that his friend was... running?
Something like that.

He scoffed.
"Technician? No. I'm an engineer."

Me? I couldn't believe he wouldn't entertain the notion.
Sounds like heaven to me.

Instead he found a job in our hometown,
at a company he worked at as a machinist,
then left to get his degrees and then came back as a global-install technician,
then as a design engineer,
and now an engineering manager,
because he likes it when things don't change *too much*.

12 years later at his fancy engineering job
(that started as a technician title)
he's fairly well paid but frustrated, dissatisfied, stressed, and unhappy
and also recently learned
that despite being pretty well-paid
(he is.. I'm not)
we cannot afford to expand out of our 865 sq ft home
so he has room for his real dreams and passions for making things
(like art).

The right title, the right pay, and yet still left disillusioned.

The American Dream: Redux

The other day Sailor asked if I would be His Designer
and offered that he would be My Builder.

We make beautiful things together already,
but let's make it official somehow.


Spending a lot of time the last few months thinking about that old job from 2008
where there was no room for improvement because
if a little sorting made things too easy... the job could became unstable.
And thinking about why work seems to be synonymous for some
with whatever they DON'T want to do,
rather than what they DO...
and suddenly I have 3 dream jobs.

How does a lazily-efficient
and genetically deficient girl
get to be so damn confusingly lucky?

I'll have to ask the moon, soon.
She'll know what to say,
even if I have to wait all day
before she comes out to visit me again.

Her silent answers and slivered smiles are always just my size.

It's saying nothing to say,
"I was just thinking...."
because I am ALWAYS "... just thinking..."

My brain is ALWAYS cranking away.

I explain it to people as My Board.

My Board is the self-organized volunteer committee in my head
who are always present/watching/attentive and
who I consult for all my biggest decisions
because there is always a cohesive group attending an endless meeting together
in a conference room in my head.

It's somewhere between a Board of Directors,
the functional parts of my family, and a weekend long sleepover party of my best friends
who have agreed to be my personal 24/7 group of life consultants
and existential detectives.

Me and this bevy of internal voices are peculiar
(I've learned)
not because not everyone have talkative groups of advisors/disagreements in their head
(although some do!)
but because me and my select committee
tend to agree
eventually.

What it feels like is my heart and my head are usually aligned.

[SPOILER: I keep going...]

I was just thinking recently
about how my mechanism of confidence works
because I've been told more than once it's an *unusual* amount.

It comes up most often in a backhanded compliment
about how I am surprisingly FREE to be so engaging, happy, bold, and unabashed
despite being a potato-shaped human human-shaped potato
who has the social confidence of a champion cheerleader
for no discernible reason.

I just chalk it up to
what unconditional motherly love does to a tiny growing brain
at a certain time in it's development.

How it proceeds from that base unconditional love
is that I don't have deep schisms or questions in my heart
about being loveable or worthy as a human being.

Simple as that.

What got me to the keyboard today
was this sudden realization
that in my dating life
I did not worry **at all** about whether the other person **liked** me.

I felt that was their business,
and they'd figure that out for themselves.

It wasn't my job to MAKE them like me,
or convince them to like me,
or coerce them to like me,
or cajole or connive them into liking me.

I wasn't even my job to HOPE they like me,
if I'm being fully honest.

My job is to decide how I'm feeling about them,
as honestly and responsibly as possible.

Their thoughts and feelings are THEIR business.
Their job.
Their decisions.
Their life.
Their love, attention, and affection.

My thoughts and feelings are mine.
Theirs are theirs.

And my thoughts/feelings are not to be based on
MY PERCEPTION
of how they think/feel about me, either.

I can hear words, I can see actions, I can feel touches
I can sense tension, I can smell change.
I'm not ignoring them, their expressions, or the relationship between us -
merely saying that I believe it is unethical pretend/project/expect you can do someone else's emotional math
FOR THEM.

It's gross, actually.

If feelings ARE mutual? Great! We're on an adventure together for now!
If feelings aren't? Great! We're on an adventure together for now!

My expectations for/with people are about being honest, and forthright
and the belief that everything ELSE will work itself out
using the grit of personal honesty in the ever-grinding wheel of time.
Hopefully a cooling breeze of kindness, regular breaks, and Grace Slick slick grace
can keep the static down, choking dust out of the air, and explosive situations to a minimum.

Watching some acerbic dramatic witcom about two anti-love/anti-relationship people
falling in a love-like relationship because they don't horrify each other -
I was reminded of a Chuck Palahniuk book "Diary"
where the male lead has a family tradition of "courting behavior"
where they wear one of the ostentatious family broaches
as a piercing through their skin.
Whoever is intrigued/excited rather than horrified?
Potential love match!

And I'll admit this is probably the closest to my feelings on the matter
of self, trust, and love I've seen in a book...

Wear your whole icky self on the outside.
Don't hide it behind costumes or performances,
because SOME DAY that won't work
and your whole real self
WILL visit unannounced
and if you are rejected ONLY THEN when you THOUGHT you had won them over?

Well.. you were just shot by your own gun.
Bam.

Slow roll self-sabotage complete.

By refusing to give yourself unconditional love, acceptance, or grace
by being yourself with people you hope to have whole-hearted relationships with
you are also trading away the possibility of ever truly receiving that gift from those people
you're seeking it from.

They'll be taught to love shadows of you, or expectations of you, or fantasies of you, or your performances or lies...
but they are NOT ALLOWED to love those intimate yous you are hiding from them,
exactly because you are not loving yourself enough
to admit them into your heartfelt relationship.

If they never get to see The Most Real Yous until AFTER you've both fallen in love,
how can they be expected to be understanding of, compassionate with, or trust
The Real Yous?
Its all nonsense now and you MADE it that way.

Why?

Here's an easily ugly truth about me.
Most of my moral philosophy is actually based on laziness.

I prefer honest because it's LITERALLY easier.

No alternate timelines.
No tracking who-told-who-what.
When you deal with truth and experience all that time and freedom of mind,
the games and management that LIES take, really showcase how it's a losing strategy
if human beings/being humans is *actually* important to you.

But I am VERY CERTAIN I am in the minority
when I think/talk like this.

Not being into people-pleasing as a daily social tactic
is just another way to say I'm selfish or self-involved
(at least in this current society).

I'm polite, I'm professional, I'm kind.
I just don't think it's my job to make others see me
the way I WISH I were.

I can be the me I most PREFER as much as I can,
but I have no real control over how I'm seen....
and that's the long and short of it.

It's not my job to try and control what you think/feel about me.
I'm not even trying to persuade you.

Again, it's not even my business.
That's your responsibility, not mine
to decide how you think/feel about whatever me you're meeting at the time.


I know more than a few people who siphon off energy from the 24/7 cage match
between their brain and their heart
and use it like a measure of gasoline for whatever self-hate machine
makes them feel most MOTIVATED or EMPOWERED to feel powerful
in any given moment.

Fueling themselves with anger, anxiety, guilt, fear, judgement, and helplessness
as the battle rages on inside them, paying out allowances for more of the same.

And I'm really beginning to wonder worriedly
about the mental health of all the people I know
who are working the system the other way...
by fighting with themselves to "stay strong"
and then expecting everyone else to enjoy the bloody battle
which as half-real and half-performance as any WWE match,
capes and dropkicks included.

Those intent on acting/proving they are worthy of love by demanding it to come from others,
rather than feeling qualified/allowed/justified/honored to give that gift to themselves.

Or believe validating themselves is cheating the system, somehow.
And maybe it is? I don't know!
I'm just sharing my funny ugly truths because... why hide it?

But the math doesn't add up to me.

IF *someone else* loves them,
THEN they will be lovable.

IF someone else trusts them,
THEN they will be trusted.

But their own experiences and judgements
are inadmissible evidence in their own court of self.

They need it from the OUTSIDE.

I don't.

Why?

Maybe because I have a 24/7 pajama party in my head
of all my most invested sides of me on-call to tell me what they honestly think of what's going on.
And, some think I could try harder,
and some think I could do better,
and some think I've missed opportunities,
and some think I make mistakes,
but on the whole?
They are on my team, and they know that I'm not perfect
and yet my job isn't to BE perfect,
it's to be ME
who, by definition... is not perfect.
So?
Learn from the good, the bad, and the ugly, and move on
because that's really the only option.

Even if I'm captaining my own sinking ship,
at least it's mine and I'm focused on what I CAN control
rather than fantasizing about what I can't.

Leave other people to themselves.
It's not their job to be perfect, either.
That's the unconditional love I give OTHERS.

And maybe that's that confidence I have.

One broken thing to another.

I see my many flaws,... and maybe I see yours, too.
But that's all just landscape, to me.

Clouds move faster than mountains,
that's all.

No my problem.
Not my job.

I have eyes which I can focus.
I have a mind I can attend.
I have a heart I can hear.
I have a body that can move.

Lucky me, I'm me.
Lucky you, you're you.

Why does it need to be any more complicated than that?

But that's me.

What does that mean TO YOU?
What do YOU mean to you?
How does self-confidence/trust work for you?

What's the easiest way for you to talk to you
and get the best answers that have helped the most
years down the line?

How do you happen to self-sabotage your self-love?

Just wondering.

Just because I don't think it's my business,
doesn't mean I don't care.
I ask, exactly because I can't guess.
That's what I mean about not putting expectations/hopes on other people
performing how I *want* them to
*for me* to feel validated.. as a person.

Does any of this make sense?

I should learn how to introduce myself - someday.
(TL;DR? Skip to the end? "Naaaah.... maybe not")

Someone asks me about me
(Like the "bio" section of this very blog...)
and my brain is startled by the question
and I answer like I was just born
with no context.

I stammer.
I have no idea what I do
day-to-day.

I work? I eat? I sleep?

[and other things....]
I dream. I breathe. I yawn.
I snore (like a LADY!).
I fart (like a LADY!).
I live. I grow. I move. I age. I change.
I love. I hate. I fuck. I fight.
I cry. I laugh. I sing badly and dance worse but;
I don't care.
I bleed (like a LADY!).
I haven't died yet, and that's nice!
I probably (statistically) have to work tomorrow.

... among other things.

... and you?

How's YOUR life?

Am I saying it wrong?

What?

Do you feel all
existential
suddenly?

What do you do?
How are you?

Do you suddenly hate me with the fire of a thousand suns?

Or kinda want to stuff me full of spiders?

Or maybe just tell me about the hardest day of your life
or your worst fear
or your biggest shame...
... just because
you suddenly felt safe with me somehow?

It happens all the time.

All those.
All of them.

They are all pretty common reactions to talking to me.

Which, what I mean is...
they are common reactions from people who want to talk at or around me,
rather than with me.

I don't mind a monologue,
Can't this patience party go both ways?
[Impatient? Party of One!]

If it's your way or the highway
then...

and I won't feel bad about it.

Them's the breaks brakes.

I'm not perfect,
and I'm happy to be the first to say so.

My face isn't saved.

That's just an elegant sweep of the eyes.
Passively showing you my scars
that the makeup of white lies are supposed hide behind.

Maybe I wear hair shirts woven of simple truths
not from devout penance,
but because I wear what I have
and I am a human
confidently dressed in my own mistakes.

So sue me.

I spare my soft and sparkly wear
for when I have the energy to play pretend;
as if I naturally shine like fresh sunlight
on aspen leaves at golden hour
shimmering with laughter from every
soft volley of breath.

That's fun
but it's also
WORK.

Modern thought has forgotten
that angels and unicorns were
just like demons and minotaurs....
divine monstrosities.
Part this, part that.
Feet of this, head of that.
Body built like this, tail swishing like that.
with wings they fly and horns they fight
and your awe
is
their grace.

I am the best.
I am the worst.
I am a beautiful monster
and noble ruin.
Like the Colosseum
which symbolized empire
with the size of its stone circles
so powerful
new empires were built from
the roughened and ready rubble of it's old tumbled walls.
A quarry of good intentions and bloodbaths - both.

I stand before you
a broken mystery
with a crooked smile
catching your eye with my jaunty walk -
boppin' as if I belonged here on Earth
despite bold filigrees of failure
decorating every bit of me.

If it not's baroque
don't fix it!



What if The Beast
or Frankenstein's monster
was allowed to just be?
If people didn't want to murder them
for existing
as a form they didn't themselves choose
just like WE do not choose our own building blocks.

What if beauties and unicorns weren't hunted
for their stunning audacity to exist at all?
Or even a worse crime -
to exist so perfectly
... without us.


So... that's what happens when you ask me
about me.

You get a **dose** of me
rather than a label or list of interests.

Seems more... honest.

Also seems more real
than some sizzle reel
I could play for them.

My place of work sternly requested a Personality Test
because we are going through
A Big Change
in our organization
and the trust just isn't there
between the bottoms
and the tops.

Top leadership is hoping
a little managerial menagerie labeling will lubricate the levers
and convince us we are enjoying
their enjoyment
of our fundamental bottoming
for their eager tippy tops.

I don't mind a personality test
I choose to take... and then
take those results
as I please.

However the mandatory sorting
by 3rd party protagonists
who are interested in plotting my personality
in their matrix
because they prefer humans
when we are reduced to categories and numbers,
then divided clearly according to registered corporate slang
and trademarked slogans?

Not so much.

Are you an Achiever® or a Communicator®?
(not hyperbole... truly registered words in their framework)

It's just...
I itch under that collar.

I sweat under that yoke.

Why can't we just... talk
like we're both people?

I feel dehumanized,
depersonalized,
when I am asked to reduce myself
to listicles of hobbies, opinions, and interests.

My name is The Wench.
I am: probably human likely with female genitals.
I like: joy, food, movement, thinking, talking, music, and beauty and believe life is worth living.
I dislike: aggressive ignorance, scammers, and sputum.
My hobbies are: being alive until I die, writing long blog entries, and reading other people's long blog entries (among other things).

What more is there to say
besides
EVERYTHING?

But, that's... kinda the point (to me).

If you're ACTUALLY interested,
you'll ACTUALLY ask me
an ACTUAL question
rather than introduce small talk with a question mark.

Two years ago (almost to the day!)
I was visiting Austin, Texas to see my second Total Solar Eclipse
so I visited the local PBS affiliate
because
that's how much I love PBS.

When I got back I tried to talk to our Marketing Director
(who was receptive)
and our Development Director
about what they were doing down in Austin
(which is a very successful/strong PBS affiliate).

In Austin I had spent time with their
Marketing head, their Productions head, and their Community Engagement head
then was invited to be in the audience for a Live-to-Tape talk show
with an amazing guest who... being outside of tech, was someone I didn't know
and I brought back SO MANY USEFUL PIECES OF INFORMATION back.

When I tried to have a meeting with OUR Director of Development
to talk about what I'd seen/learned
since it dovetailed in
with so much he seemed to talk about wanting to develop here....

... crickets.

It was a blank expression from him
until I tried to push the subject
and he got annoyed and curt.

So that combined with few other ways he'd treated me,
on top of a few stories I'd heard about how he treated others
I decided it CLEARLY wasn't worth my time
trying to be listened to.

Fast forward two years later.
He's now our new General Manager.
One of 6 in 60 years.

He just came back from Austin PBS
from a major national leadership meeting.

Guess what he learned about?

...... everything I was trying to tell him 2 years ago.

Nice.

I just got an all-staff blast
which was an long AI-composed email
talking about how his mind was blown
by all the things he'd learned
about their business model.

They were ALL points I'd personally learned
(and had thoughtfully wrote out for him)
and tried to talk to him about
Two. Years. Ago.

Sailor also suffers this particular bitter pill.

Where his research goes unread
his observations, ignored
his advice, actively argued against...

... and then.... years later...

Someone ELSE says the same thing....
and everyone reacts with excitement.
"That's BRILLIANT!
If only someone had brought this point up YEARS ago!"

It's probably why Sailor is the only person I know
who can stand to hear me out
when everyone else
is busy telling me I'm the annoying asshole in the situation
when I'm trying to tell them
the thing they NEED to hear
rather than the thing they WANT to hear.

To everyone else?

I'm this lady named Cassandra
who keeps telling them things they find impossible to listen to or believe.

Sailor and I walked through a 1930s middle class house right behind the business district
that is right next to Downtown
with almost everything we do in a walkable two-mile radius.

This is how I used to live
in The Before Times.

Get groceries, hike the river gorge, go to the library
watch the waterfalls, buy pie, sip suds
and track the throngs of tweaking dudes itching for their next fixin
walkin' down the street with a pant leg tucked
lettin' everyone know they're lookin'.

Because unregulated capitalism
EATS WHOLE LIVES WHOLLY ALIVE.

Even with 1.5 good jobs between us
in our 40s with no children
it's damn dicey tryin' to afford a dilapidated
100 year old softly-sinking house
in a sketch part of the city just off-center



with a sunny view
of the alternative high school's garbage bins
right across the street.

Please note:
That's a notable upgrade
from our distantly-suburban small-house
across the street from a drug house with lots of DV calls
12 miles from most of the places we congregate outside of our home
consisting of 868 sq feet of living space
and zero dead space.
Every possible CREVICE is filled
to the tippy top
like a sippy cup.

It's wild to know a brand-new custom depression-era craftsman home
was more affordable to a single-income middle-class family
DURING THE DEPRESSION
than the same (slightly settled and damply dilapidated) house is
to a middle class two-income household almost 100 years later.

Non-sequitur:

At the protest this week...
some guy tied a 1980s theater sound system to the top of his
White Nationalist flag-wavin' pickup truck
so he could wear an American Flag jumpsuit and blast Vanilla Ice
circling the protest block for 5 hours
guzzling gas for the pure war-time pleasure of it
while an 8-lane cacophony of cars, trucks, semis, and vans
honked their support
for peace, justice, and rainbows.

Another young guy scooted around sitting on an battery-powered amp
blasting Christian Rap
wearing a cowl-neck mask,
an Army Surplus flack jacket,
a battle helmet, and I Heart I.C.E. and Anti-Antifa buttons
recording everyone at the protest.

I thought those guys were the anti-maskers?
Oh, yeah... they only want to wear them
when THEY are the only benefactor
of their own actions.

"I should wear a face mask to protect YOUR actual body and life?
FUCK YOU! THAT'S FASCISM!!
I should wear a face mask to protect MY identity from a bunch of bubble-blowin' pacifists at THEIR event?
Sign me UP!"

I wish this world made more sense...

I saw a 10 year kid old waving a mini rainbow flag walk up and give the Anti-Antifa dude a fist bump.
"You're wrong, but at least there's still Freedom of Speech AMIRIGHT?"
Way to outmature him, kid.

Maybe that was a passable sequitur
in the end?

We're all going to get crunched by the algorithms
perhaps sooner rather than later,
now that sooner has already come and gone.

Remember when there was hope for the future?

Remember that?

The good old days,
when things were bad
but they were getting better.

That was a good time, wasn't it?

I'd say this was just the ennui of getting older,
but the kids in the Sunrise Movement say otherwise.

I'm eager to settle into a comfortable dream someday,
buying some space/time to stretch out and relax
but I can't help feeling like
it would be cuddling into a bed of nails
by the time it was all over.

The constant drain since Hope came
and then Hope Changed
and the Ugliest Americans came out in solidarity
to have a group tantrum about why everyone should give them what they want
BECAUSE THEY WANT IT.
Angrily defending childish fits of greed, hatred, violence, and spreading pain like it was peanut butter
until Lady Liberty
found herself too tired to fight,
figuring all these red-faced toddlers holding their breath (and guns?)
would tire themselves out so they could BOTH take naps
and THEN maybe they could talk sense about it.

The 2008 Crash was almost 20 years ago.
Housing prices have tripled since then.

The burnout is real.

Stability is an illusion.

What is left?

What else is real?

It's hard to know.

I'm aware there is no right answer.
There is no The Answer.

But it's annoying to know that
in the face of also knowing
that there are SO MANY
Very Wrong answers out there
vying for supremacy right now.

Whenever I want to escape into fantasy....
... I look at houses online
and imagine living in a home where I feel
excited by it's individual presence.

I imagine loving the house
for **itself**.

I've lived in three houses like that...
and I've visited many,
and I've had many good times
and good memories
in houses that did NOT make me feel that way...

But oh!
Lo the house that although inanimate
has a presence and a beating heart built right in somehow
where I can nestle myself inside
pulling in all my legs and arms after me
folding in through the door
into a living chamber
that feels like sunshine and love and myself
holding me
from the *outside*.

Something that wasn't just made like a box
for people to shelter in...
... but a structure built to BE more
than the walls it wears.

They exist.
I swear they exist.

But the home I grew up in,
[the same house Sailor and I bought and have been living in for 10 years]
feels like I'm a hermit crab and for want of a shell that fits
I've moved into a dirty and dented Diet Coke can
I keep dragging around.

I admit
I often think how my mom used to say this house was cursed.
I'm willing to admit
I agree.

And if it is?
It's probably because she cursed it.

My mom is an excellent curser... a natural.

I'm not talking about a naughty trip of the tongue.
She is a lady who will make extreme eyecontact,
and fork her fingers at someone
and say something that is a deeply adamant and person wish to the heavens
that that person will fall into misery, despair, and emotional or physical ruin
and then end it with:
"[...] so you will FINALLY understand where I'm coming from."


She wishes her own specific miseries on others
any chance she gets.

She sometimes gawks at them afterward,
daring them to stick around for more spite.

She has plenty to spare.

[In China they dont say Oh My GOD when surprised or exasperate, they say Oh My MOTHER!]
Sometimes when she becomes full of feeling
she yell and scream and cry about why HER mother was so "hard"
and always got her own way -
where she felt impotent and weak and controlled and lost
since she awoke to this world
and such a "hard" mother
and
THEREFORE
she NEVER gets to get "her way".

My mom has no idea who hard of a woman she is,
in her OWN ways.

It seems worthwhile to point out
my mom had her first mental breakdown in college when she read
The Maldoror.

The story of a keen young man with a knight's heart
who brings ruin to everyone he tries to help
and lifts up everyone he strives against.

And he is forced to figure out
**who** he is
and how he will behave
when all results oppose his intentions.

His kindness kills.
His vileness saves.

To DO good - to BE good -
he must behave in evil ways.

What do I do?
What do I do?

Her mind split in two
between its pages.

55 years later she is still asking herself
"What to do?
What to do?"

In the end, she does what she does
with regret,
with remorse,
and with VIGOR.

My mom hated this house and yet lived here for 40 years.

I've hated this house
and have also lived here almost 30 years.

Yes, history does repeat.

This house has had a cursed existence
to house [verb]
& home [verb]
people who don't want to live here.

Which ALSO feels like a curse
to live so long
in a place that is unloved.

So... I fantasize
about OTHER places.

So why am I here?

Sailor.
HE is my home!

The HOUSE?
Less important.

And in an unaffordable world
we have an affordable life
(hooray!)
all thanks to a cursed-to-be hated house
helping us weather many terrible storms.

Yay!
Boo!
Yay!


So I fantasize about a building
for the life Sailor and I are building
but thinking of these old patterns in the bent branches of my family.
Old bruises
cold curses
folded pages of too many dark books
stacked on tables
*everywhere*.

It's a clutter of Love, here with Sailor!
HE IS A JOY!!

But we're spending this time
in a physical space I've never liked.

A physical building
that most of my worst memories once happened here...
and yet here I am...
back here...
...still here...
... and why?

No idea.

So I just... keep looking at other houses
and trying to figure out real estate agents
like a tired husband
tired of husbanding his **particular** wife
researching divorce lawyers...
but kinda feeling bad about it.

Even though it's just a house
(and 45 years of baggage)
I'm fighting with.

I want be free of it

Yet here I am.
Trying to make things I don't want BETTER
rather than choosing
something
BETTER
in the first place.

Just.
Like.
My Mom.

It feels like waiting to be reborn.

Maybe it just feels like
**waiting**
???

I don't know.

Maybe it's just whatever this feeling is:


After watching that, I felt a little better.

Then I watched another 80's video (The Smiths)
and started reading the comments
and when someone said,
"I like the music, I hope he doesn't have controversial views..."
which was answered with a simple comment
"anti-immigrant, racist"
which then started a 400+ reply comment thread with one faction arguing
"It's unfair to call anti-immigrant beliefs racist! THAT'S INCORRECT!"
which spiraled into all the things that *aren't" racist like:
- making fun of people's accents
- believing in blood quanta/blood purity
- Islamaphobia
until they had fully parsed and mapped all the kinds of hate that can be indulged in
that **AREN'T NECESSARILY RACIST** while saying the OP has been "based" by this iron-clad argument
[which I'm guessing is the next gen version of "p0wned"]
and suddenly the feeling is right back.

I just got back from San Francisco a week ago,
and will be going to L.A. in a week or two.

These are both voluntary, joyful trips to see my oldest friends.
... but I don't want to do the scheduling
I don't want to the communicating
I don't want to organize
I don't even want to celebrate
...

It reminds me of when I used to work in call centers,
and after awhile
I stopped answering my personal phone.

I answered 120-350 calls a day at work,
I was done picking up the phone.

There is a pall at work - all my co-workers are unhappy
and I am right there with them
and it's such a change from when I started in 2021
when I had a nascent worry if I was joining a cult
because they were all SOOO happy
even though everyone else had worked there for at least 5 years,
and at least 30% of the staff
had worked there over 30 years.

Since 2024 we were defrauded, defunded, andmost leadership retired.
Our new General Manager was promoted from within
and is the ONE GUY in the whole company
who I've struggled to find a happy communication style with.

The link I gave is the one positive experience I've had with him
(it was his birthday)
and his intimate timeline still haunts me
even if I also... still admire it.

He started his new job with a sounding round of firings and layoffs.

Turns out... no one at work is getting along with him
and now that he's the official GM
it's become definitely Not A Him problem
it's All of Us problem.
because we are fireable...
and he is not
(at least by us!)

Everyone is getting write ups
and having this awful HR meetings.

This is all the New Normal since last July.

But I still love The Job itself...
but I'm feeling trapped.

Stuck.
Sick.
Tired.
Anxious.
Aimless.

I've been escaping into fantasy more and more often.

I feel I should let you know that what is "fantasy" to me
is like "a silly and whimsical yet totally accessible idea".

Like moving to Ireland for awhile.
Why?
Who needs a REASON!?

Fuck this place!

Fuck these paths I know and these habits I endure!

Fuck what I know,
I want something ELSE!

Sailor has been so patient,
explaining he wants a change, too...
but do we want THAT?

What DO we want?

We talk and talk and talk....

We want each other.

Everything else is up for debate.

That's not a bad place to find ourselves and I recognize that.
So does he.

But my brain doesn't want to PLAN...
it wants to dream
all
day
long.

Waiting in my very own lobby,
for me to show up for our unscheduled meeting
I guess.

You read me right.

This is my trigger warning for the topic of
genitals, gonads, reproductive cells and fertile fluids.
Oh, and meat-talk.. just in general

Because I want to know:
[Why do so many people eat animal eggs, but we dont generally eat animal sperm?]

I was reading a novel about an young American protagonist who had been placed in a Japanese "internment camp" during WWII.
Well, his family came from Japan but he was born in America,
which makes him an American, no?

Anyways... it's winter in his camp in central Oregon.
It's snowy, windy, and very cold.
The buildings are breezy,
the blankets are thin and so is the food.

A friend gets him a job in camp, being a janitor for the guards' encampment.
Then the friend shows him how he himself has been stealing a few calories every couple days...
The guards have horses, one of them is a stallion he "milks" when he has the chance.
He was a ranch hand before he was forced into the open-air prison camp,
and ranch hands know their way around dirty jobs and farm animals, both.

The main character feels revolted and promises himself he'd never do that,
and spurns his friend for being so disgusting....
until he becomes hungry and desperate enough
that he does everything he promised he wouldn't do
and realizes it was a salty-sweet protein-rich bounty when you're starving to death
on bad bread and worse water.

His friend ends up dying in an escape attempt,
and the man finds a horrible glee that he doesn't need the share the occasional shot of stallion soup
and worries about telling anyone else,
because of his own reaction... his hatred and disgust he felt
when his friend shared
this precious and life-saving secret.

That if others knew... everyone would be doing it,
that's just how hungry EVERYONE is.

In the real world...
I remember friends coming back from ice-fishing
with 7 small lake trout
and eating a fresh trout roe taco.
The soft eggs pulled from the pouch of a gutted and flayed fish,
mixed with a broken chicken egg
and mother's milk from a cow
and garlic and chili and parsley and breadcrumbs
and fried in clumps right next to the fresh fish flesh fillets.

They were friggin' delicious.
It was amazing.

I also grew up with Testicle Festivals nearby..
because we were ranch people in farm country
so I know lots of people who have eaten "Rocky Mountain Oysters"
but it's more like a dare than a delight
and there's always lots of mockery
and you're definitely not *supposed* to like it
whether or not you do.

When I went to Iceland, damn right I went to the Phallological Museum
and got to learn more about penises in the animal kingdom
and animal AND human penises in the human imagination
than I ever thought there was to know.
Thanks, Iceland!

I'm not squeamish about sex, sexuality, or bodies... in general.
I'm not squeamish about food, either.

I'm an adult human who has swallowed some semen in her life.
I've consumed it... but did I *eat* it?
I would say, "no".
Enjoyed it? Sure.
Made a meal of it? No.
Prepare it or cook it? No.
SNACKED on it? Nope.
Sorry.

Have I EVER seen animal semen on a menu?
If you have, PLEASE TELL ME!

It IS harvested... ask any mammal breeder.
But is it ever harvested for *us* to prepare, eat, and enjoy?
Why not?
It's a renewable accessible calorie-ful flavor punch full of life-building energy!

Milk and eggs are on most every menu across more than half the world.
Animal milk is mothers' milk...
only produced at certain times as a part of a reproductive function of secondary sex glands.

But then we take it and eat it a million different ways
from all KINDS of mammal mommies whose teets we greedily squeeze extra fat and calories from
like manna for the season they can make it.
Cow milk, horse milk, sheep milk, goat milk, yak milk, elephant milk, llama milk...
if it has mammaries,
we'll MILK 'EM
(if the mom doesn't kill us for trying at least; I doubt a hippo would tolerate being milked)

You can also buy human breast milk,
but we protect it like treasure... maybe because we know it IS?
For BABBIES ONLY, ya sickos!

Bird eggs and fish eggs and turtle eggs...
As a species we're apparently relentlessly hungry for their rich life potential.

We also have a taste for young and baby animals,
veal and lamb and pullets.

Young and vulnerable women are even called chicks and calves and lambs...
a sweet young meat that doesn't know what's coming for them
with their creamy skin and soft & slippery middles.

Why are female byproducts like eggs and milk and even BABIES..
offered as non-sexualized/non-taboo common meal ingredients...
but male byproducts... are not?



Just a question I've been thinking about.

What's your reaction to this topic?

I keep a quote on my bathroom mirror...

"Growth feels a lot like failure at first.
Anything becoming must first fail to be what it was before."

For the last 4+ years
I've been unusually settled
since I've been working at my dream job.

I usually move within my city every year or two,
following good rental rates and living areas.
I usually change jobs just as often...
because that's what entry-level jobs are
(and they're a cycle/trap as well)
looking for something new to learn and do all day.

The fact it's my dream job
also means my job exists in opposition
to the current unethical economic and political establishments
all vying to recklessly bully and/or please one another
(and be bullied and/or pleased in turn)
like some elegantly vindictive European court of the Renaissance
while half the country apparently argues amongst themselves,
"But how can they think they can DO that to us?!"
while not protecting/defending OTHERS...
... so that's nice.
Rather comforting when the world is going mad,
really.

Anyways...
I've recently noticed that usually high patience
is wearing thing
with a feeling of *waiting*
and my whole SELF is getting TWITCHY
in an urgent, uncomfortable, and uncontrollable way
that feels a little like existential Restless Leg Syndrome.

An Aside:
[Elder Millennial context]
In the early 2000s
American TV was getting its first real deluge of pharmaceutical ads.
One of the popular treatments being marketed without remorse
was for Restless Leg Syndrome.

Whatever happened to Restless Leg Syndrome?
Apparently Valtrex or Farhrvegnugen
or whatever drug it was... WORKS!
A miracle?

End Aside.

AM I waiting?
What am I waiting for, then?



[My Rhetorical Answer to that Rhetorical Question]
I don't know
but 12 years ago
I was writing from the early end of choice-tunnel or two
and am now emerging from the far end of 'em...
and yet feel all the same ways
in so many ways.

Huh.

Damn.

Thanks prior self
for being a waybackmachine for Lost Thoughts From Myself
from 2014 which was
[looking back]
it was a big year
(of pretty okay writing!)



I've been fantasizing about
Everywhere Else.

Oh, all the places I don't live!
I LOVE YOU!
I appreciate you!

Pacific Grove, California
had fresh crashing beaches
flocks of pelicans.

There were amazing dinners
and it's hard to describe the surprise
of seeing
an elegantly bored hammerhead shark
swim his routes
*whoooosh*
right by me.

We visited Sailor's Ancestors
(including an ancestor-who-also-sailed)
interred in Colma, California
visiting under the slanting watch of sunset**
and drank ciders
at one of those 100-year old
beer-soaked-wood dark taverns
with ancient original newspapers stapled to the wall
saying The Nazis were defeated and the devastation of local earthquakes
and a photo line of old Fire Chiefs for the small cemetery town.

I got nauseous on the twisted narrow highway up to Muir and Bolinas Beach.
I marveled at the Giant Redwoods
as they stood in a stately and curvaceous
receiving line.

And felt that thing where hoards of people
are trying VERY HARD to ignore
all the hoards of people
who are there
with them.

I remember [the feeling] from Venice...
all these American tourists going,
"If only those tourists would get out of my way, this would be lovely!"

The global tourists just... enjoyed themselves
as if they already understood a popular and beautiful gathering place
probably contains other people.

I prefer the Non-American way
in so many little ways...

We spent time in sleepy Bolinas, California
and spent sunset at the Unpopular Beach
which had like 20 people on it
(and SO MANY holey rocks!)
right around the point from the Popular Beach
with HUNDREDS of people on it,
across the lagoon from the EXTREMELY popular beach
with thousands of people on it.

I'm so glad I was at the Unpopular Beach
because I ended up losing my dignity
by perfectly timing a graceless fall into a
big oncoming wave
which threw my skirt over my head
and soaked everything
BUT.. my phones!

YAY! I'm LUCKY, guys!!
Who needs dignity when your phone and prescription sunglasses
are SAVED!?

We drove late night down to San Francisco
and had a small tucked in studio apartment
near Seacliff,
and a golfcourse built on a Chinese cemetery
where the most beautiful monuments were kept
as course features
while only MOST of the bodies were removed
to.... whereever.

America.

We just hung out with one of our Oldtime BestFriendlies
who really loves living in San Francisco.
We laughed and told stories
and played Youtube Roulette late into the night
after a rousing round of
a homebrew Star Trek role playing game.

I'm Terran Reginald Barclay
(We're currently trapped in a time loop on Starbase 80 during the Dominion War)

We got deliriously drunk in public on the sidewalk of a sunny cafe
(and winebar)
while trolleys dinged by
and we all caught up
and laughed some more.

We climbed steep sidewalks to watch the sunset over the bay
and as our friend apologized for the steep walk
and I said "I hate you, right now but it's just a hill. I'll get over it."
The pun slipping by unacknowledged
but appreciated.

Now we're back.
And I'm tired.
And I was tired the whole damned time.

Like bone-tired.

With a lot on my mind,...
like... cemeteries.

Sailor came home from work yesterday.
"I didn't realize it, but I did a HUGE brain dump during our trip.
Like, I forgot the names of my co-workers!"

He's been working there for almost 10 years.

I laughed until my belly ached.

We just might be two people
getting ready for another change.

**(Sailor and I have visited many beautiful cemeteries in goldenhours...
never on purpose, it just... works out that way.
A quiet start or end to a busy day.
A place where it's okay
to have a lot on your mind...)