Where it's dark

I caught myself trying to please and impress someone who obviously didn't like me. I'd only made a few attempts, and the last left me feeling like an gnat.

Too bad it had to get to that juncture for the realization. It's okay though, I've learned a valuable lesson in the school of social networks: Sometimes people you really like have bad taste and hang out with assholes.

I did get to be back to a teenage state. To actually feel a level of desperation and yearning to make some inroads and make it obvious that there were reasons to find me a desirable friend. It's stuck with me for the better part of week, left me looking for some clarity out into the cloudy night. Nothing there though. It's an echo, a phantom of a younger me, one who shouldn't have cared but did; who would have done anything to get a laugh, or acknowledgment of my value.

I am weary

I've not dabbled in depression, I'm an expert. Never been diagnosed, didn't have an analyst, though I often consider that step, it's just something I've known enduringly.
Environment, genetics, relentless bullying in my formative years, pick a card any card. I can work with it, and around it most of the time. Not to say that I've got it licked, because it merely ebbs and flows with the seasons, but, I feel more than compelled to admit that it's got the best of me.
Me, more myself than ever, better off in ways never imagined. Yet, with work full of divisive maneuvering , home kind of at a loss, throw in some grey skies aplenty, the results = Usually able to cope> .
It can all be broken down into elements, as can all of our individual components, so,I write about it and share what is perceived as weak and hidden, expose it to, well not the light because there is none here, but just get it out there.
I'm almost at 100,000 visitors to this site, if I feel this way, we can darn well bet I'm not alone.

A tournament of lies

If ever there was a movie made in my lifetime that I could completely relate to, it would be, and is Melancholia.
Jake called me at work yesterday to let me know that all Cleveland Cinemas movies were free for the evening, and did I want to go to the Capitol and see a movie with him. I didn't initially, but then when Eamon agreed I was game.
It's a lovely theater, the people were pleasant, they serve wine and beer, there was free popped corn, it was magical so I waited for something to go horribly wrong.
Melancholia kills us all. This is something I've known all of my life, but could never have imagined such an articulate visual and aural interpretation of that tidbit.
Two older films, Renoir's The Rules of the Game and Bunuel's Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, predecessors equally grounded in the absurdity of ritual, events and obligation when one over thinks the experience at hand, came to mind as the audience laughed and in turn reeled at the moments of absolute accuracy of emotion.
Everyone in this film is stellar, everything about it, gives me hope.

Flunked shampoo

We moved to the community in which we currently live, for just a couple of reasons, the primary being that the schools were exemplary. Of course, after we did, they couldn't pass a levy if, well if everything depended on it.
This has happened to us before, and I take full responsibility for the demise of two other school districts, from my mere presence in the neighborhood.
Nevertheless, the school system has been trying to pass what is known as a permanent improvement levy, which means that there is no raise of the tax level, the amount is just maintained, and it's failed twice.
In November, it passed by 7 votes. The county, actually two counties had to certify a recount and they still came up with that number.
I've never, or at least not since losing my one and only attempt at a student council position, seen an election that hinged on so few or so small of a margin.
Not unlike the rest of our country, the community is divided in half, and since in this case a few extra people decided to exercise their civic duty, the course of an entire district has been altered.

I should have found by now

in 1969, my father won a Fulbright Scholarship to teach at In Ankara Turkey. I think there were a few choices of other European countries, but my parents chose Turkey as our destination for one year.
Recently I've been trying to remember aspects of that experience. There are some constants, like the trip itself, and images of certain events, landmarks and or scuffles during the process of traveling across oceans and continents with a family and a lot of baggage. But, as it recedes with the years, one thing remains clear about that, and other experiences with my family. We were rarely if ever affiliated with anything. The only ones that were, my parents, belonged to every organization that they could associated with their field.
Neither during that year abroad, or at any other time, can I remember being part of any greater group or larger framework than the five of us.
There were forays, some religious instruction that petered out, lessons of all sorts. But unlike any other family I've known, we were connected to nothing, not even each other really.
The echoes of that remain today.
My husband was so affiliated, that he rejected any connection to a larger set, due to the level at which he had to participate as a youngster.
I may just be remembering it in a completely subjective way, but I've been revisiting those years, and looking at how some members of my family now are affected by feelings of isolation and separateness. Those things were handed down, maybe unconsciously. Regardless of the nature of our experiences, they do have an origin that is all too familiar.

Let the promise fade

There is something prodigious about hearing a song coming from your nineteen year old's computer that you listened to when you were the same age.
It's not a common title, or even one he would have heard a lot growing up in our house. It was one that had personal meaning based on a time and a place.
I have to make a leap here and guess that he was intrigued because some of the song is in Spanish.
So, now after thirty years, I know what that lyric means, not that I couldn't have found out myself, but it's kind of fun to settle that long term mystery.
Gus will be leaving for Argentina in about a month. He told me last night, that his life's desire is to speak and think in Spanish.
Applying my, it takes two weeks to adapt to any new environment theory, given that he's already fluent, he will probably have his wish in a quincena.

You'll have to answer

In the event that I ever actually say what I'm first inclined, I will celebrate with abandon.
I had stopped going to the car dealership for oil changes when my warranty ended, but as they will, sending me a coupon pulled me right back in.
It was supposed to be a "quick" one, but there were attempts made to lessen my haste and add some much needed services.
Lucky for me I have an all inclusive trip to "my husband is unemployed land," so when you bandy that phrase about, people take leave for the most part, or at least their attempts become anaemic in comparison to some full onslaughts which are de riguer in most cases of add ons.
After I stopped saying no and just waited to be dismissed from the desk, I went to the lounge to wait it out, knowing full well what was in store.
In the warmer months, I wait outside on what is probably the staff smoking bench, at least there, I am free from the ever present morning television shows.
Much to my surprise, the TV was not on, and people were reading, working on lap tops and or just sitting quietly. Until that is, one guy with, I might add, one of the more interesting postiche(s) I've had the privilege of seeing ever, had enough of that and decided it was time to get the party started and watch, at full volume, the apparently all commercial station.
After a few minutes, it would have been seconds, but I decided to wait and see if anyone else was going to do it, I asked him to please turn it down a little bit, though what I really wanted to say was less muted, I just knew it was probably better to just let it be.
His response, "oh sorry am I keeping you from paying attention to your important board meeting?" To which I responded, "no, and I hate to keep you from your equally important commercials." It ended there, however I could have gone on forever just to be able to stare at his head. But I went back to my work and he went back to his 72nd viewing of the Robert Wagner pitchfest.