Awkwardly Social

I want to say hi to all the readers coming from Kristin, my dear friend, someone who has always inspired me to be more honest and say what I’m really feeling.  I am fortunate to have met someone like her, no matter how hard I tried to sabotage our meeting each other.  I used to be really scared to meet new people.  Now, I’m just older, and don’t really worry as much about what people think of me, also, I take xanax.  It’s amazing what modern pharmaceuticals and a couple of years of black out drinking can do for a person.  So, welcome!   

This weekend I spent Saturday in bed, when I told my friend that he said, “Oh!” as only an openly gay man can, and I shook my head and said, “No, not that way.”  And he said, “Oh….”  And we laughed.  I’m trying to get pregnant, but not like all day long.  Mostly this weekend I was trying to fight the plague that a certain group of story producers leaked into our shared bullpen. (Their show rhymes with rodrect prungay, they are the sickest! I think because they work harder than we do, their show is 3 times longer than ours, and they have 3 times the staff…)  Still no baby, but a full fledged cold has been incubated.  Yay, me?

I just read an excellent post by Cecily about personal blogging and how we oversharers, people who talk about their addictions, their fuck ups, their lady parts, are rare in the current “blog market.”  New bloggers fiercely protect their identity and their brand because they want large corporations to pay them cash money to write about a small segment of their lives.  Cool.  Just, not for me.

I’ve never been a brand.  I’ve never advertised on this page.  The only money I’ve made on this blog is on this post about how much I love my insurance company.  I wrote the post, it showed up in my poor insurance company’s new media guy’s google alert 5 years later, and they offered to pay me to include a link to their page.  That’s about how much effort I’m willing to put into making money on my blog.  I admire writers who are able to turn their blogs into money making ventures, but that’s just not ever what this place was for.  I was inspired by Pamie, and then I found a small group of people who were in the same place in their lives writing about their experiences and I connected with them and laughed and tried to make them laugh.

The best part about writing here is that I’ve been writing about my life for six years.  Not the weird rambling repetitive shit I write in my paper journal about my idiotic obsession with success, how I wish certain people were dead because I hate their guts, and why I am so ever loving sad and nervous all of the time. The stuff I write here, while it might not appear so to the casual reader, is edited, refined and written for a reason other than to complain.  I can sift through my own archives and figure out where I was 5 years ago.  (Oh god, I just did that, wow, it’s been a long 5 years… different boyfriend, different house, different Tamara.)

Now, six years later, I write for a living.  I work in reality tv partly because I know there are smart people out there who will see the ridiculous moments we’re putting in there for their pleasure.  I think I also work in reality because of this page, writing here has helped me see how the reality of a situation can be made funnier.  How the reality of a situation can be improved with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

This Robitussin isn’t going to take itself, so I best get on that.  I hope it doesn’t kill the yet to be conceived baby…

I’m reading a slightly embarrassing self-help book for writers called Walking on Alligators.  In it there are daily (hourly?) meditations on writing and strategies on how to get your ass into the chair and write.  One of the strategies is to look at oneself and the demons you keep in your closet and use them.  If there are things you don’t like about yourself, use them in characters.  Build those things into story lines.  Use them in your villains.  Use them in characterizations of your family.  Use everything, good and bad.

I have a lot of bad.  I think if we’re honest we all can find a lot of bad.

My demons are plenty, but mostly I feel like shit physically right now.

I am dealing with a bum ear, and those that know me know I’m a terrible sick person.  I need a cave to hide in and someone to throw medicine and food at me from a safe distance.  I am having a hard time hearing on the left side, thrice daily drops poured into my ear canal, congestion, hives, sleepless nights, and all the while dealing with a new daytime situation that has me commuting to the dreaded valley and sitting at a table made of plastic.  It’s a hard knock life, for us.

So, if you notice a bit of extra angst on these here pages, I will just tell you, I’m working some things out, and this is my safe place.

On the upside, I got to go to the Dodger v. Yankee game tonight, something I had been looking forward to for a while.  And aside from the extra obnoxious vibe of Dodger fans, it was good to be back at the park.

With my real job and my freelance work, I’ve been working seven days a week.  On my birthday I had a glass of red wine with my friend who just had foot surgery, and spent the rest of the night kind of rolled in a ball of self-loathing.  The thing is, I’m doing what I need to do to support myself, I just don’t particularly like the person it makes me - tired, snappish, prone to drinking, and quite possibly in need of a serious attitude adjustment.  I mostly thought when I turned 33 I would be more… grown up?  responsible?  I don’t know.

So, thank you for the birthday wishes everyone.  I love the belated ones, because they came in after the hoopla of the day is over and remind me that it could be worse, I could be dead!

Seth is going back to work soon, which, YAY work!  Boo, no more Seth at home giving me the daily dog update.

Random aside: We were at our local joint eating and a woman walked in.  She made me so ridiculously sad.  It was her mom hair and her perfectly ironed skirt.  Her sweater tucked into it and her belt just so.  Her black nylons and her pratical heels.  She ate alone.  She looked perfectly fine with it, but, man, she depressed the shit out of me.

And appropos of nothing, I don’t know how you people do it, the work, the family… How do you have time for television?  I work in television and I don’t have time to watch it.  I didn’t have cable for a year.  I would watch a random episode of Gossip Girl here and there, and 30 Rock on Hulu, but boy am I out of the loop.  I have about 15 minutes a day that I can spend watching TV, and those precious moments are instead spent either hitting the snooze button or writing my morning pages.  Which, morning pages are embarrassing, that’s all there is to it.  But they’re an integral part of my writing process, and I need them.  I do them.  I cringe.  I try not to bring it up in mixed company, but there you go, I’m a recovering writer.

All of this is to say that it’s been busy.  I’ll be getting less busy as soon as Seth is getting more busy, and so the world turns, and sands through the hour glass, and something about a hospital in general.

It’s going to look a little funky around here while I fight with my a new Wordpress theme.

I’ll need a strong drink and a good lay after all this is over.

UPDATE 1: WTF? Why is that over my face? I hate computers.

UPDATE 2: Seriously, I broke everything. And now I’m just back at the beginning. FUCK ME.

UPDATE 3: So… See that “Awkwardly Social” in the upper right hand corner of the header?  It’s not supposed to be there.  I deselected “Show Text” in the Wordpress Theme’s option, but it’s still there.  Shift + Refreshing is getting me nowhere.  I’m open to suggestions.  Offers of help.  Etc.

My bosses went to a meeting with an executive who happens to be a friend of mine, and she straight up told them I’m a blogger. I’d been keeping it on the down low for obvious reasons, most of which have to do with the fact that it’s a little embarrassing to have your employer read about your sad face days and your love life.

I was mortified when they came back from that meeting, and stopped at my desk.

“Brooke gave us some dirt on you.”

“What dirt?”

“Oh. Just that you’re A BLOGGER! Girl! What’s the address?”

I refused to give it to them, but that did not stop them. Hi, bosses!

I want to tell you that unless they specifically say it’s OK, I won’t be writing about work here on these pages. Here’s the deal though, they asked me to write about this.

We are doing a show called “Why I Ran” it airs on Monday nights on the Biography channel at 7:30PM PST/10:30PM EST. And I’m asking you to check it out. This is a show with some crazy, some heart wrenching, some incredible stories about the people behind the wheel in high speed chases. It’s pretty fascinating. If you’re into high speed chases (and who isn’t, really?) you should watch.

I’m only adjacently involved in this show but everyone from the editors to the executives all are top notch people who really have delivered some quality television.

Here’s a teaser for you.

And, now you know what I do for a living. Sort of. But not really.

You should see my drafts list.  In the past week, I’ve tried to write about a lot of things.

I’ve tried to write about Mercury being in retrograde and how living in Southern California makes it possible to use that as a valid excuse for things getting fucked up at your job.  All that topic deserves is the sentence I just wrote.  Instead I rambled on and on and tried to be funny.  Turns out, I’m not all that funny when it comes to hippy-dippy lifestyle in California.

I’ve tried to write about the ghost that turned up in Mr. F’s apartment and started cooking some ghost mac and cheese, and then some ghost Hamburger Helper.  He was a big silhouette-y ghost.  It barely deserved a twitter.

I’ve tried to write about my trip to a new doctor and how he kind of called me a woman of loose morals, but in a nice way.  Also, he called me a classy dame.  I think he’s a doctor from the past.  He’s Mr. F’s doctor so that would make sense.

I’ve tried to write about returning to exercise.  I did.  A fat teenaged girl on my street mocked me for running with my dog.  If it hadn’t been so weirdly out of the blue, I probably would have gotten pissed.  Instead I get a chuckle thinking about her toad like body running in place sounding off about me running.  It was really quite a picture.  The whole run I thought about ways I could have wounded her with words, instead of just laughing and running away. I think I chose the right path.

I’ve tried to write about how Mr. F’s health report… I still don’t have the words.  I told my mom about his diagnosis, expecting her to be less than happy about the probable outcome.  Instead she told me, “It’s not that bad, you and he should be worried about the economy instead.”  My mom, ever the R.N.  If she was here, she’d probably tell him to take a nap and hand him a spaghetti pot to barf in.  Even if he wasn’t tired, or experiencing flu-like symptoms.

I’ve tried to write about house hunting.  It’s been frustrating.  But now we have a kick ass realtor.  We have six places to look at tomorrow, two of which we’re really excited about.

I’ve even considered writing about seeing a reader of mine, a girl whose blog I read, popping up on Louie’s flickr page.  And how that was weird.  But that’s about all I can say, it was weird.  But I guess given the small town nature of blogging, totally expected.

And that’s about the sum of my drafts folder.  Phew!  Now I can delete those pigs and move on with my life.

I don’t know why, today of all days, I feel the need to disclaim. What you read here sometimes barely scratches the surface of my life and what I’m thinking about, other times it’s coming from the darkest reaches of stuff that should be left unsaid, especially when I look back at some of my melodramatic posts and cringe.

Top it all off with the fact that I’m feeling a little blocked since I stopped drinking. I have words in me, but they come out wrong. They have too many asides and the point seems lost somewhere in the writing. I don’t always drink when I write, but I when I drink I always want to write. Something about that magic elixir that clears away the filter, makes me feel more coherent.

Mr. F and I had a rough week last week. He got test results today that promise a long road of medicine and treatments and lifestyle changes. I didn’t know how I would react, and I really wanted to cry and fall apart a little when I first heard the news, but my friend Catherine said it best in an e-mail to me, “Love means not being able to break down when you want to…” And she’s right.

But that has nothing to do with this. I keep thinking if I just keep writing, something good will eventually come out. Bear with me while I try to creep through the cobwebs of my sober brain.

—-

We are an interesting looking couple to say the least. He has crazy gray hair and interesting taste in clothing, ranging from ratty preppy polo t-shirts from the 80s and incomprehensible denim from the 70s, to concert t-shirts from the 90s and expensive jeans from last year, all topped off with fancy sunglasses that he almost always wears inside. Me, well, you know what I look like. Generally I’m in a casual dress and flip flops with either a ridiculously inappropriate handbag from H&M, or a book bag from NPR, stupidly long reddish blond hair perpetually looking like it’s 6 months overdue for a haircut.

When we are together, we are almost always touching. Sometimes it’s me with my hand stretched out behind me hoping he’ll pick up the pace. Sometimes it’s him with his hand on my hip bone pulling me close, making me feel like our bodies were somehow made for each other, 21 years apart. People tend to remember us. He doesn’t blend, and when I’m with him, I don’t either.

We had explored the entire lingerie department in Nordstrom’s trying to find a couple of nightgowns that didn’t have animal print, old lady flowers or SLUT written all over them, when finally we found a couple I could stomach wearing and he could stomach looking at, when we walked over to the counter to pay. I looked at a bottle of pink liquid sitting innocently on the counter and read the label, “Lingerie Wash and Stain Remover,” and I snorted. Mr. F looked at it and said, “Stains. I guess it’s better than saying, “Removes Blood and Shit’.”

Then he handed three white nightgowns to the young cashier behind the counter as I was laughing into my sleeve. She looked at me and said, “Oh, it’s good for all kinds of stains. You know, like even on your shirt.” I replied, “Or the blue dress you wore on your second day of your internship at the White House.” And she tried not to laugh, but I could see the chuckle building up in her.

Some hijinks ensued with Mr. F’s credit card, we’ve got a regular slap stick routine going with his card and him losing it and me finding it and then him losing it again, and the lingerie lady behind the counter was watching us and she smiled. “You guys are so fun.” “Really? We’re not just annoying and disorganized?” “No, you’re such a good couple.”

And I don’t know what else to say, except to say that we are. And I can’t imagine the next part of my life without him. How that’s possible just 6 short months after I met him, I don’t know. But here we are.

I wrote this on January 2, 2008 and saved it to my drafts. I’m trying to clear up some stuff before I go on vacation, and my draft box was one of those things on my list. I have no idea why this particular task seemed important before going on a family vacation where presumably I’ll have internet, but c’est la vie, my mind is a mysterious place.

And for those of you who are new here, a little back story, my boyfriend had broken up with me a few weeks earlier and my life was kind of flipped upside down. My ex and I are on pretty good terms now. He occasionally dog sits for Lula. He knows about my new boyfriend and teases me about him. (Mr. F is 21 years older than me, which makes him 23 years older than Louie, which makes Louie a mere 3 years older than Mr. F’s oldest son. Which maybe would creep me out if I wasn’t so in love.) I’ve come a long way since that January day, and want to get this old post off the plate, but didn’t want to let it disappear into my hard drive of things that disappear. So, without further ado because this introduction is now almost longer than the original post, I give you -

flow-chart

In an effort to not write about how I’m feeling about things today I thought I would make you a handy graph of things I’ve said to people in a weird and awkward way about my break-up and things I’ve thought about saying but didn’t say because I am a chicken. Then I realized to make a graph I would have to have the ability or desire to do that thing with the checked paper and the lines and the clever wording, so I’m just going to write you a list, and in your head you can imagine it is as awesome as these graphs.

1. My ex-boss has been feeling sorry for me because I crashed my car on the way to his birthday party, also I occasionally do things for him like fix his fax machine and turn his computer on, so he gives me money every once in a while. I think of him like a curmudgeonly patriarch, not unlike my two grandpas mushed into one, but with a bigger bank account. So today he came in and gave me a check and told me to buy a car. It was kind of funny because the check he gave me wasn’t really of the car buying dollar amount. And we laughed. Then he said in his authoritative voice with what I think I’ve diagnosed as a slight Brooklyn accent, “No really, go buy a car, I don’t want to think about you sitting on the bus anymore.” I said, “Didn’t you hear? I bought a car and I got dumped by my boyfriend! I’ll never ride the bus again! Happy New Year!” I was feeling kind of chipper because I had just consumed three Ferrar Roche thingies for lunch, and we had a nice laugh. At my expense.

2. Fiona and I were sitting at the dinner table and Fiona said, “Do you think you’ll ever get another boyfriend like Louie again?” I said, “Not if I’m lucky!”

3. At lunch yesterday when I found a short black hair in my soupy macaroni and cheese I called the waiter over and told him to take it away. In my head I thought, “And give it to Louie.” Out loud I said, “And bring me another Bloody Mary.”

I thought to myself a few weeks ago that I just wouldn’t participate in the weird dynamics of the internet anymore, specifically the linking and the commenting and the trying to be the next cool thing. I wouldn’t worry about traffic or if the popular bloggers knew who I was or if I was saying the right thing or the perfect thing or anything. I thought, “Hey, if I want to comment somewhere, I’ll comment, but I won’t do it because I think that if I say the right thing then they’ll read my site and I’ll get popular and then one day I can do this for a living.” I decided this because I heard this sad story of a group of popular, powerful bloggers leaving out another blogger, who thought she was their friend, in kind of a spiteful and immature way. It broke my heart, because I have been the kid who was walking towards her bus and saw a group of girls I thought were my friends all getting in the most popular girl in school’s car. Sleep over! Who’s not invited? Oh, yeah, me. I mean, I couldn’t go anyway, because I had to go home and feed all of our cats. You know how it is.

Uhh… Anyway, that long interlude of weirdness is because I got tagged for a meme. Meme is a word I still don’t understand but use anyway. I pronounce it MeeMee, but I don’t know if that’s even the way you’re supposed to say it. Meem? Meemay? That one’s funny. (Say it in your head like Timmy on South Park would say it - Timmmaaaay!)

The Palinode is one (of many) of my favorite writers on the web. He reads like a good novel that you’ve jumped into at just the right page. I find his style reminiscent of the best combination of Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Burgess, and David Sedaris with a little Vladamir Nabokov thrown in. It doesn’t hurt that his wife is Schmutzie. I want to have someone box them up and export them to Los Angeles so we can sit on my fire escape and take telephoto pictures of the drunks in my neighborhood. I guess what I’m trying to say is, he tagged me. So, here I am, participating in internet shenanigans that I vowed I would avoid! I’m so complex and unpredictable!

Here are The Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Here is what The Palinode had to say about the rules {snort}: Those were the rules. I don’t quite understand why rules 3 & 4 aren’t collapsed into one rule (ie. Post sentences six, seven and eight) but I’m not going to argue with rules. Especially meme rules, which are tinkered with at the user’s peril. I understand that Jenny B. from Rapid City tinkered with the rules once, and the next day she developed hives, and the hives developed mouths, and the mouths wanted to watch the special edition of Ghost with the cast & crew commentary, and through the nights and days they screamed and lowed and ululated for Ghost, until eventually she broke down and bought a copy, and you know what? It sucked. That’s twenty-five bucks she’s never getting back.

And now the mouths rest quietly, waiting for the 3-disc box set of Pretty Woman.

And without further ado: The book closest to me is (thank god it’s not the Mary Kay Letourneau exposé I’m actually reading, that one is all cuddled up with Lula at home, she has a thing for older ladies) The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice-Cream God - which I shoved in my bag in an earnest attempt to find time to actually take a lunch break today, I still have not cracked the spine - and the sentences read as follows:

“I could see him rocking on the backs of his heels. A strand of flesh and bone, wavering, but not quite willing to capitulate to the whims of a summer breeze.

When Leonard, saw me approaching, he reacted by lobbing the ball up to the basket.”

I like those sentences. I like the name Leonard, I had an Great Uncle Leonard. Now I can’t wait to read this book!

And finally, I’m tagging no one! I’m breaking the rules! I hope I don’t get hives that turn into mouths, but honestly if they want to watch the DVD commentary of Ghost, I’ll comply. I want to know what the director has to say about that scene on the subway. Also, I enjoy a little young Patrick Swayze from time to time, especially if it’s in the context of him finally telling his damned life partner that he loves her instead of pussing out and saying, “Ditto.” GOD, dude, grow the fuck up!

Do you ever get that feeling after you’ve taken off all of your clothes and are standing completely naked in front of someone you know pretty well, that you had no idea how many people were in the room with you?  All of a sudden every ex-boyfriend who ever looked sideways at your thighs, every girl in gym class who told you your nipples were too big or too small or too pink or are they crooked, every friend who has commented about your small waist which really means they’re noticing your big ass - they’re all there… and they are all watching you.

I don’t know what to say right now because once you take off all of your clothes there is a moment where your winning personality gets forgotten, because good lord, “I didn’t know she looked like that!”  “Her clothes hid that thing (what is that thing, anyway?) so well, now that she’s naked it’s hard to look her in the face because, good good, woman, shave your legs.  Put some effort into it at least.”

Well, here I am.  I haven’t shaved in a while.  I’m so happy you guys don’t seem to care.  Sorry if I scratch you with my stubble.  Thank you for being so generous and open in the comments.  It was an easy post to write, but I didn’t expect to be so scared about reading your comments.  I am thankful every day to have such nice readers and am continually grateful that my readership remains small, loyal and kick ass.  You guys have balls of steel, too, you know that?  I’d happily strip in front of you every day, but for the moment I’m going to have to put my clothes back on and take a deep breath and thank the lord that’s over with.  Being naked in a room full of strangers is something I’m going to have to take in small doses until I get used to it.