Abstract Theory on Random Behavior

The Theory: if you have far too much work to do, and your children will be neglected if you do it all, and you will have no time for your own personal needs, never mind your hygeine, and all will go to hell in the proverbial handbasket, you should begin by getting on the computer and looking for a different job. This will solve your problem in two ways. First, and I hate it when people make lists like this and say first so I'm just going to list as many things as I wanna; second, you will think about the future and the possibilities, and your anxiety and frustration in regard to your current job, and its innumerable requirements, will be softened - the anxiety and frustration, that is, because you will be avoiding it; second, or third, if you like, we're not really counting, remember? Fourth, you may actually get a sense of accomplishment because you will find jobs listed where they are waiting for someone exactly like you, no, actually, they are waiting for you, or to be precise, me, personally, to come on over and finally make the dull workplace that they inhabit a well-run and dynamic place to be. I did find several such places and actually wrote a cover letter to one that looks eager to have me, and to pay me perhaps a sizeable fraction of what I make now. Seventh. Eighth, you should be doing the actual work you are avoiding in the first place, you know, and I know, and we both know the other knows, but it would seem so mainstream, so with the crowd.

Where does one find an identity if it is not an anti-identity? I am not just like everyone else. I do not take pride in paperwork, and I am not a concrete fucking sequential thinker, so now let's all stop telling me that I'm 'random abstract' as if that's non-judgmental. Twelve: these terms are related to learning styles and concrete sequential people are organized, together, love lists, sorting, robotic chores, bad literature, and uninspiring art. But I don't judge them. Abstract random persons, such as myself, enjoy typos because sometimes they're funnier than the original text, love a good mess, listen to loud music, and have better fashion sense than any of those organization freaks. We are always better looking, better dancers, and the people with the big ideas. Fifty two. I think I'll stay up late to get my work done.

I Am The Reality

What if I wrote a post in the middle of a typical working-mama anxiety-jag? What if I have too much work today, and tomorrow I am going to be judged on all of my work for the entire school year, based on one observation? What if at least one motherfucker is going to come in and tell me how incompetent I am because her daughter is smart and I should give her high grades? And despite the fact that that mother wears belly-shirts and her very sweet daughter seems to have a memory problem, I am utterly anxious about the conflict? Despite the fact that I am known for my sharp wit, etc, that having any parent kvetch is like a case of salmonella in a public school? What if my new-moan-ya is coming back, just a bit, and I had to sleep the past three days, way more than I expected? And last weekend, instead of work, I was attentive daughter to ailing parent? And what if I am doing laundry, right now, for crissake? I'm 10 minutes from fold and sort.

Instead of a theory, I am the reality, right now. I took the meds I take for the goddamn anxiety disorder, but if I take the PRN for bad days, I'll be sedated, and then what? Why did I choose a profession which earns me just enough? I was brought up to have what I want, and I want my own bathroom. I want to take a leave of absence after a family member dies, or is quite ill. And what if I am quite ill? Must I say always that I am lucky because I am not starving? Or the pathetic line I give my children: "we're actually rich, compared to the rest of the world." Can I just be a product of our piggy lazy society and say I wanna lie on the couch, I wanna minute to volunteer at my kids' school, I wanna go back and get my hair re-done without thinking about the goddamn money?

I am not a sociological theory, I am a lady barely managing financially and emotionally in the lovely woodsy suburb so my kids can get an education worthy of the best private schools around. Somewhere along the line I forgot about me, or maybe money and me. The brawny psycho-pharm guy said it was impressive how much I've done, considering my psychiatric history. Oh, puhleez. Isn't raising two kids, getting a master's degree, trying to live with a man, and working full time enough to actually give someone a psychiatric condition?

I'm off to persevorate more, the imaginary print lining the inside of my skull.

The Oscars Are Bullshit and The Wrong Kinda Whine

Brokeback was a precedent-setting film: every movement and still moment on Heath Ledger's face created a character utterly believable, miserable, and sadly wise. The chemistry between the two actors was also precedent-setting: in what other film have we seen two people pressed up and seeking each other like Ennis and Jack the first time they reunite on Ennis's steps?

The Oscars were pathetically mainstream. How innovative is a running fag joke? Everyone is scared shitless to offend African Americans in any way, but we can say whatever we want, we're all pals with "Will & Grace."

Movie actors are not the self-sacrificing altruists Mr. Clooney described: they may be artists, but they are not as innovative or political as some of them think they are. Reese Witherspoon, for example, is not an Oxfam worker, despite her yearning to matter. And would someone please reach down Ms. Witherspoon's throat and adjust her voicebox? That thing is like interference on an old radio.

Daughtering

I thought I would spend the weekend writing, doing laundry, and preparing a presentation at work. Then came the ring. Don't people always talk about the ring? It's probably nothing, but my dad is in the hospital with chest pains. It's probably nothing, but he's had some heart problems in the past. They put some balloons in there about a year ago, and told him to lose weight. He's very heavy. It's probably nothing, but I remember that documentary that Tim Lehrer did about his heart attack - he described it as a train running over his chest - and the doctors keeping him for observation before the train left the station.

One time, Dad felt chest pains, so he got up out of bed, took a shower, and waited for my mom to wake up. Like, duh! He wanted to be sure he smelled good or something? The doctors said later that a heart attack had been imminent, but the balloons opened up the clogged arteries. I knew then that that would be the first of several future cardiac-type visits. The folks there seemed professional and friendly - occasionally a rural hospital will be comforting rather than eerily backward. They had automatic doors, so they seemed hip to the high-tech thing.

Isn't it odd to be at an age when we consider a parent's death, not as a remote fear, but as a real possibility? It's not that he is in a dire situation at the moment, but the ER visits do give one pause. When my father was thirty years old, his sister died. A year later, his mother died. Dad sometimes said it was a broken heart that killed his mother. My brother died last summer. Both of my parents have been determined to continue to participate in the world, to grasp at what they do have, while they mourn. So I am going to be with them and to kvetch at him (nag) about eating the lousy food and drinking enough water. And I'm sort of hoping that he is not thinking about the irony, or even that he now shares an experience with his mother that he never imagined he would.

For my own mother, I am hoping that she has many years with her companion, a night with some sleep in it, and a little relief from the sadness. The latter two seem 'highly unlikely,' as we say in my family. She likes to 'think positive,' though, so despite my tendencies otherwise, I am going to join her there. This is one situation in which a little denial may be required.