Brain wobbling...

It’s a wonder to me the way people can spend so much of their time speculating and judging and gossiping about things that don’t actually matter and, even if it did, they don’t have enough information to be judging anything. I’m sitting here as I type, listening to my neighbors discuss the relative burnability of our building, the tendency of neighbors to look in any open window, the uselessness of absentee landlords, Section 8 housing and the general decline of this nation we call home. Glad to hear I’m not surrounded by supporters of a regime I find difficult to respect but the tone in their voices is at best uninspiring to hear. Its one of weary acceptance laced with the bitter certainty that life should mean more than the whole in the bottom of your kitchen cabinet and burning dumpsters. Or is that me? I dream of a place where I can’t hear my neighbors unless I’ve invited them in, where I can vacuum or move furniture around at 2:00 am when the mood strikes without pissing some one off. Life should mean more than the petty crap I have to listen to when the people on either side of me get together to smoke. They’re both old enough to know better…old enough to have moved on from here…they depress me because they’re proof that a person’s whole life is perfectly capable of ending in a tiny apartment bitching about the same damn shit for so long you can’t even muster any real passion about it. Weary bitterness is the best they can do. It reminds me of my grandmother – the unhappy one, the one who has spent her entire life playing the victim…the one that, in my bad moments, I see where I could end, if I’m not really, really careful. So much come to so little…what a disappointment!

The following incomprehensible mess is due to the mess going on in my head – I apologize, but from moment to moment I’m thinking about whether or not I’ll get this job I just interviewed for and, behind that the fear that I won’t and that nothing else will come along either and, at the same time, I’m thinking what if I have to stay where I am? And do I have the balls to leave without somewhere else to go? And will I flake out again after everything is said and done anyway?…I have nothing going on of any interest in my head at the moment, when was the last time an idea sparked something for more than a moment and, as long as we’re at it, when will I find that next, all-consuming, great read?....and with that is a fear that I’ve found all the unexpected, interesting surprises I’m going to find in my life, in my books, in…well…anything. I’ve way overdone it (but come nowhere near enough) and everything is finite when all is said and done right? …and what will I do then?...when nothing strikes me to read? When there is nothing to grab my interest and push me into new directions, to come up with new lines of thought, new story ideas and plot points…new reasons to keep going – where are my next landmarks, next rivers to cross, mountains to climb – that sh*t?...what do I do with my time if this is all I’m gonna get?...and, mixed in with the rest is the usual, what if I really can’t write?...I mean, I can write but what if I can’t tell a story that is even remotely interesting to anyone but me?...and is it even possible to build as much as I think about into something entertaining but not fluff?...oh, and I’m feeling very, very fat right now for some unknown reason and I’ve lately felt a growing certainty that this is my life and it’s dripping away with every moment that passes and I don’t think I have the…energy… to care that much except I really, really don’t like the idea of ending up like my neighbors or my grandmother…weary and bitter and…unsatisfied.

Bleh! What a load of hooey! Not everything has to mean something and every moment doesn’t have to be perfect or interesting or even anything but what it is. I know that, I just have a hard time accepting it. I blame this on a lifetime of movie and television watching despite the cliché I’m buying into to do it. Life, is life, whatever that looks like and, reality, just isn’t as endlessly exciting as, say, an episode of Farscape or something. I amuse myself sometimes by imagining these larger-than-life characters in the time between the big adventures. I mean, they couldn’t possibly spend every day solving life-threatening problems with no breaks for the day to day crap that makes our lives livable …you know, everyday living, right? It’s just that, watching them eat breakfast, brush their hair, read books, stare off into space, pick their noses, fix things, exercise or sit on the toilet just wouldn’t be great television…or something…

We had a fire in our dumpster at 3:11 am on Tuesday morning – the whole building was out in their jammies and mussed hair and sleep blurred eyes. Milling around and staring at other people saving the day…well, saving the dumpster anyway. Even with all the excitement we just didn’t live up to the likes of John Crichton. At least some people get to do the fun stuff. Firemen do great and necessary things but they create an incredible mess while they’re at it and, once the fire is dead, they leave. Theirs is the big, dramatic role (yes, even they, with all their excitement still have to fill the spaces in between – I know, but that’s not what we see from the outside)…everyone else is left with the mundanity of putting whatever has become the destroyed back in order…and, really, where’s the fun in cleaning up? We’re back into the moments that only happen during the commercials, or after the show is over...

The thing is, those moments make up the bulk of our lives and I can’t help feeling…sometimes…a little…let down by it all…and then I realize what my problem must be – yes! I have it! My problem is that I haven’t been shot through a worm-hole to a distant galaxy or accidentally stumbled into an alternate dimension or woken up with wings or anything half so interesting but, what I have done is that I have imagined all those things and, to the brain, imagining something is no different than actually doing it…or something like that…maybe it’s that remembering something produces the exact same activity in the brain as experiencing the thing itself? Whatever-I’m just thinking here but, how different can imagination be from remembering? – keeping in mind, of course, that human memory is largely an exercise in imagination anyway. So, to my brain, all these things have happened to me – could happen again…and quite reasonably might – I mean, anything that than can happen once, can happen again, right? If reality really is just a construct created by our brains to help us cope, well…who says reality can’t be whatever I want it to be??

How’s that for a load of mush, eh? I do my best to express myself and end up sounding like that…it’s a wonder I know what I’m talking about much less any of you…assuming you’ve made it this far.

For some more practical, real life sort of information, I had an interview with another PEO yesterday that I’m thinking went alright but not great and, now that it seems to me I may not be offered the position, I’d really like to have it if only because it would be a convenient, relatively easily achieved escape from my current situation. That, and I’d be able to cash out my 401k (yes, I know that is not probably the wisest choice) and pay off a couple bills which would amount to at least an extra $200 a month not going out the door automatically…and leave enough so I could have some decent savings again…oooo, that holy grail of a stash of money in case of emergency…or a sudden urge to cross the ocean…you know – the image of freedom to go with the idea…At any rate, the interview reminded me that I’m complete crap at being continuously questioned and judged for 40 minutes straight. Oh, and I seem to have become less able to say things in a such a way so they don’t sound as negative as they actually are…all unknowingly, I started in to why I’m looking to leave my current employer, and instead of the nice, canned, perfectly acceptable answer I’d prepared (I’ve gone as far as I can there, I think it’s time to move into a position where I can expand my experience and learn more about this business of people herding…blah, blah, blah) I suddenly hear myself saying that things have become far too stressful because of certain personalities and that I’m not comfortable with where I fear things may be going with the company and that I haven’t gotten my review for 6 months…and…well…I think I may have screwed myself out of being offered a perfectly acceptable job out of nervousness and a lack of practice in presenting myself in the best possible light, you know? That and I wore a shirt that just wouldn’t stay in it’s place and kept insisting on slipping down and giving far too clear a view of my breasts to anyone looking in my direction – and, to make it worse, I’m so terribly white that all that abundant flesh framed in lacey black could hardly be overlooked…by any sighted person…bleh! Ah, well, it’s not the only job I’ve applied for, just the only one I was actually asked to apply for…and the money isn’t that good, and I don’t like driving all that much and as I’ve said, more than once, I don’t really care for the PEO industry all that much and that, staying in benefits would be much easier at an individual company and…well, I’m sure there are other reasons why it won’t be a complete tragedy if I don’t get the job. Still, no one likes to be rejected but, if that’s what I’m in for, I wish it could be done quickly so I don’t have to think about it anymore. What’s the quote? “If twere done, twere best twere done quickly...” or something like that…

Hey! I’ve just remembered it’s a long weekend this weekend! Whoo-hoo! I still think the best job (working for some one else) would be one where I could work like, three days a week and have the rest of my time to do with whatever I’d like – that and make at least the kind of money I do now…that would be just about perfect. Enough interaction with the world around me to keep me from going off the deep end and little enough to keep me from losing my mind…;-)…could be too late in either case…