Hear What They See

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Survival Tips

Jeff bought this survival calendar for the bathroom at work. So basically, when you're sitting in there using the facilities, you have this nice survival calendar just waiting to be read. So today I drank a little too much coffee and had to piddle and I'm reading today's survival tip. La-dee-da, how to jump from a bridge or cliff into the water. Hmm, ya, the likelihood of me needing that tip is pretty high considering the perilous cliffs that surround the area (note specific use of sarcasm). Huh. But being the ever-ready kind of girl that I am, I figured I'd better read it anyway. So I'm reading and I get to number 4 and start to titter when I read "clench your buttocks together." Then I read the bottom aside portion, "If you do not, the water may rush in and cause severe internal damage." Holy Mackeral Andy! Not only does that sound horrid, which it's supposed to, the even more horrid part about it is that in order for them to have that kind of information on hand to put on a Survival Calendar, it means some investigative coroner or medical professional had to autopsy or provide medical care to someone whose rearend got majorly ripped asunder by a drop into the water from a bridge or cliff. That sho ain't no info they're telling you about in those Bond or Charlie's Angels movies where everyone is leaping off cliffs. They don't tell you that Double-O-Seven is clenching his buttocks as he's jumping from the cliff so that water doesn't rush in and cause severe internal damage. Egads. I dunno, that just really got to me, reading that. Because the more I thought about it, the more my brain decided to have a field day with the tidbit. I mean, for instance, what about a woman's boobs or a man's testicles? The bruising would be just, well, AWFUL, if not crushing. The part about jumping in feet first to make sure your feet take the brunt of the impact glosses over the major fact that your feet will probably be broken to bits if you survive the leap. Your knees will be jammed into their sockets, as will your hips and possibly your arms. If you're a female, you will need to concern yourself about your feminine area because it, like your buttocks, has a hole in which water can enter causing severe internal damage. And I already mentioned the male counterpart.

That was my thought for the day.
While sitting on the facilities in the restroom at work.
It's all just fun and games in the insurance biz, believe you me.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 6:39 PM

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

once a yakker, always a yakker

Being back at work seems somewhat futile. I keep thinking there's got to be something better than this. Which sounds hokey and overplayed. I mean, how many people out there lament their career fates (I wrote career "farts" instead of "fates"...it seems rather better, doesn't it? Career farts...)?

I am deflated.
Pffffftttttttttttttt.
Like a balloon after the helium's been sucked out of it by an over-zealous party show-off doing their rendition of the Munchkins.
I'm fat and gross and nasty.
How's that for self-of-steam?
I've gained so much weight, I feel like a Triple Decker Chin atop a mountain of gelatinous belly.
Eeeeiuw.
Ya, I know, females aren't supposed to talk about such things because it makes people feel like they need to reassure them that they're OK.
Piffle.
I need to frickin' start working out again. I would like a trainer, but I'm po' and can't afford a trainer. But when I worked out with my trainer dude, he nailed my ass to the grindstone and made me WORK. It was fun. And the payoff was so cool. To see your body getting all shapely and muscle-toned, WOW. Neato. But I had a nifty gig with Rich the Trainer Dude. I didn't have to pay him. We bartered. He trained me 5 days/week and I cooked for him. That's the beauty of bartering with a single, musclebound 40-something male who has a metabolism like a cheetah and who likes to eat. I couldn't pay him, but this former cheffette could sure as the dickens cook. So I did. And it worked gorgeously until he got fired from the gym. Dammit. My whole self fell off the track of gymlyness and here I am, fat and gross and nasty.

Sometimes I wish I was really, really self-centered and bitchy and that I didn't give two hoots about other people and then I could work out all the time and spend time preening incessantly and getting boob jobs and highlighted hair and attracting rich men who wanted to buy me lots of expensive things like an even bigger pair of boobs and maybe a Porsche and a set of Ferragamo luggage. Then I could drop them like flies and live the high life, drinking imported fizzy water and having my fingernails manicured by a woman from Paris named Meret with a dubious past who would speak to me un dulcet tones while she gave my thighs a wax job.

But I'm not like that.
Not even a little bit.
Well, except for the fizzy imported water.
I do like that.

Instead I incessantly worry about those around me, seeming surly and mean at times because I grind my teeth into a headache because I worry about THEM. Always always wondering how to make people feel better, make their lives easier, make things not quite so hard. Meanwhile my teeth get ground into nubbins and I'm getting fatter by the day. Pretty soon you'll be able to heft me up and use me next to Bullwinkle in the Macys Day Parade.

Dave's brother Bryan found this blog. It paralyzed me for awhile when I realized someone I knew, who knew my life and me and Dave, who is in fact related to Dave, that they'd "found me out." It's one thing to shout into cyber-oblivion and not expect anyone you know to answer back. It's quite another sensation to realize you've been heard by someone who knows your voice. But I guess I've gotten over it, 'cause here I am. Just goes to show, once a yakker, always a yakker.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 6:18 PM

Friday, April 25, 2003

Bloody Nose

Been on vacation since last Saturday.
Today's the last day.
Haven't felt much like writing, don't know why.
A place called Genoa, NV. Oldest settlement in Nevada.

My parents own this timeshare here. Kind of cheesy place where everything looks new and plastic-coated, gas fireplaces and VCRs. Nice enough, though. Bigger than our own place, but with much less personality. That's right, for what we lack in size, we make up for in personality. Sounds like a great new way to market myself. Anyhow, it's been free, which is key. Really all I've spent my money on is film and getting 120 film developed. Been taking pictures like mad. Of nothing in particular. Just using my Holga and SuperSampler. I still need some practice. My photos lack personality, but they make up for it somewhat in size. How's that for a little table turning.
We're near Carson City. The casinos near here are drab and monochrome. Or maybe just colorblind. They lack color. No zing. No zow. Just giant bilboards with flashing light signs about fried chicken Fridays. Every time I see one of those light signs I think of that Steve Martin movie, I can't think of the name because my recall on such info fails me when I need it most. LA-something. The one where the light sign on the side of the road would flash messages that applied to his life. I always wish someone would create messages with those signs, something idealistic or pessimistic or altrusitic. Can you imagine? Standing outside of one of those no-color stucco low block building casinos, the sign blinking at you "Turn your ass around and take your paycheck and buy your wife some roses, you moron." Or "C'mon in and blow your wad! It's better than paying taxes."

The air is dry. I've woken up every morning with painful nasal passages and bloody Kleenex. I had headaches for the first 4 days, but those have subsided, thankfully. I was popping prescription strength ibuprofen like sweetarts. Now it's just the nose. There are Canada geese in the marshland surrounding the resort. You'd think with marshland it'd be more humid than it is. Nope. We are surrounded by snow-capped mountains, but none of the moisture makes its way into this valley. Sagebrush and tumble weeds and these stark trees. I wish I knew what they are called. They are whiteboned remains against the dark mountainside. There are pelicans and heron and some black bird with white-striped wings and a dipping tail. They are larger than mockingbirds but smaller than crows. But the geese are the everywhere. Mating season. They are paired off. When they fly, it is always in twos. There are a couple that come up on the withered grass outside our balconey every day at about 5:00. Honking outside, the two of them, poking around in the grass for whatever it is they eat. They honk like dogs barking, they sound more like dogs than dogs do.

It would be cheap to live here. Could I handle the bloody noses every morning or would I finally acclimate? Would I want to live in a place where light sign billboards tell me the only thing I have to look forward to in the way of cultural events are fried chicken Fridays at Slot World?

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 11:19 AM

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

We had Chinese.
We got fortune cookies.
We opened them up.
Dave didn't want me to read his:

How appropos.
Who knew that even a fortune cookie could get in yer face and tell it to you like it is.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 12:41 PM

Monday, April 14, 2003

The question begs asking: What the hell is wrong with me that I must marry men who are certifiably crazy or undeniably depressed? What the hell is it? Dave told me last night, as I cried and said I was losing faith, he told me, "I'm probably too big of a project for you, huh?" Is that it? Relationships, just a series of projects in my life? Am I so in need of distraction?

I knew when I was 13 that in 20 years exactly I would be a high-powered executive who wore horn-rimmed glasses, alligator pumps, Pendelton tweed and carried a briefcase. I would have 2 children with names like Winter Kahe and Kalani who went to private school. I would drive a Mercedes wagon like one of the Ewings. Somehow in all that 13-year old envisioning, though, I never put a face on a husband. Even at 13 the assumption was I would be the one toting home the bacon. God, how much Gloria Steinem was shoved into my head through my eyes and ears without me ever even knowing it? How much did it screw up the works?

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 10:22 PM

Sunday, April 13, 2003

nobody here

This is all absolute genius. This kind of programming is beautiful. Clean and seamless.

Happiness is nothing more than a naive phase between two depressions.

Some live their lives merely out of a lack of reasons to die.

The notion that you are inevitably going to fail, is much more painful than the notion that you have failed, because it has yet to happen.

I had everything in me to become a genius. A major scientist, writer or philsopher.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 4:45 PM

Saturday, April 12, 2003

IVI: Inter Vent Ion

So it's come to intervention.
I guess calling a pastor is considered intervention.
Last time I had to consider intervention for someone it was my husband being hauled off to the psyche ward in a county mental hospital. We're divorced now. He's now back in Albania. Or maybe Italy. I don't know.
Intervention.
Inter Vent Ion.
IVI for short.
I guess a pastor's better than a pysche ward.

I'm so tired.
My husband is depressed.
Miserable was the word he used this morning.
My usually "effervescant" personality is as flat as a diet cola in a lipstick-smudged glass from the party the night before. I am spent. I am teared out. And I'm basically fed up.

I found out on Thursday that we owe the Gub $1000+/-. State and Fed taxes combined came to about that amount. I didn't tell Dave. I knew he'd carry on about the effed up tax system and this and that and how unfair it is and how he's sick of being poor and what a loser he is and how pitiful his life is and throw whatever else into that mix that you'd like and it'd pretty much fine. So I didn't say anything. Then I remembered my promise to myself that David's a big boy and he's a 35-year old male who should be able to handle this kind of information and the bulk of our life as married people should NOT always have to fall on my shoulders. So I told him. Yesterday afternoon when he called the office. He didn't say anything, not really, but I could tell. It was in his "'Bye" at the end of the conversation. I didn't want to go home. I knew I was in for it. Sho nuff.

We got in an argument in the truck front of Blockbuster whereby I felt myself feeling blamed for his misery. It probably wasn't how it was intended, but it came out that way. And it's how I chose to take it because I do feel crappy that he married me and my debt from my first marriage; responsible, like I should have made better choices in my life. That was the caveat of that divorce. I took the $35k debt so I could get divorced and be away from someone who made no bones about the fact that in his schizophrenic mind I deserved to die. He tried once, but it didn't work ::thumps chest:: still here. Actually, I think he tried a second time but I didn't know about it until after the fact. I guess he hit a guardrail in Hertz rental car on the freeway in the rain trying to drive to where I lived so he could, as he put it, "make you disappear." I suppose that was his lingo for "kill you."

Anyway, fast forward to today. Over half of that $35k debt has been paid off in 2 years, but it has been at some expense. None of which I feel is particularly life-threatening; it has more to do with ego than anything - living with the parentals (who are good people, by the way), not being able to afford to buy a house, feeling like kids aren't an option. But to David all of that is beneath his dignity. Which I can understand in a cerebral sort of way. I'm not a male, so I can't pretend it totally makes sense, but on an intellectual level, it makes sense. But to me, all of this is temporary. All of this scraping along is just what we do until everything's paid down and we can afford, without shooting ourselves in the feet, to move into a place of our own, think about babies. But nothing's good enough for Dave. I'm not good enough for Dave. He says the opposite but actions, as they say, speak louder than words. I try to be patient, I really do. But I've also tried to take on so much more than I probably should have to "protect" him from himself. "Oh, he'll get depressed. If I tell him this or that, he'll over-react. I need to be careful, I need to cushion."

But now the expense is getting greater. It is more personal now. There is a tearing down of my integrity. I'm trying to steer clear of airing dirty laundry, here, but I am so tired. There is nothing about myself that I can change, there is no amount of cushioning or protecting that I can do, there are no words or no amount of money that will change the misery that dwells in my husband's heart. And I am not writing all of this so that people feel sorry for me or think my husband's a jackass or think I'm a jackass. It's because, at the moment, I feel like there needs to be one place in this world where I can have some kind of say and just let it be. Put it down as it occurs, and not worry about whether it's right or wrong.

At the moment I'm just tired and my eyes feel like hamburger and the pastor is talking to Dave and I am elsewhere writing on a computer because my human condition feels unfit for human consumption at the moment.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 2:07 PM

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

I've been reading various blogs. Not to mention talking to people every day which I do incessantly in my line of work. Not to mention my family & friends. OK, so. I've been reading, talking to, relating to all these people the last few weeks and months and I have come to the conclusion that EVERYONE IS DEPRESSED. I'm not saying this in a negative way, it's more of an observational thing. Even reading my own entries last month, c'mon. But it's a notable thing. Why? Well, in my line of work, we have to ask a lot of personl questions for Life and Health insurance. You learn all kinds of personal information, specifically with regards to medical history. None of this information really does anything for me; it's private and it's privileged. But this is what I'm getting at: 50% of people I talk to these days who have concerns about life or health insurance have noted on their applications that they are taking some kind of anti-depressant. Why are we SO depressed?

I'm reading a book about "How to Manage Your Team" or some such thing and there was a sentence in there that I found quite telling. It stated that every decade, human knowledge MORE THAN DOUBLES. I find that a fascinating statistic. Fascinating because just think of the implications. If our knowledge base increase by more than 2 times every 10 years, that means during my lifetime alone (33 years) human knowledge is 13+/- (1x2=2x2.5=5x2.5=12.5) times as much as it was when I was born. I have a sneaking suspicion that it may more than double with the advanced sorts of technology that have been created since the 80's, when that book was written.

So I'm putting those two things together, making some unfounded conclusions. That human depression is a direct result of the exponentially increasing TONS of human knowledge. How can we remember something before we have to forget it to make way for something new? No wonder Alzheimers abounds. No wonder grandpa wishes he was dead, wishes the world would slow down so he could decipher it. No wonder so many people are on meds - it alleviates the need to keep up.

That's just my theory. I've been thinking about depression a lot. That's the theory that comes to mind. No solutions.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 6:40 PM

Monday, April 07, 2003

Hairstory

Dave doesn't like my hair. He doesn't say as much any longer, but he basically prefers straight hair. That Jennifer Connolly kind of hair - dark, long, silken. I don't have that kind of hair. I have curly hair. I've always had curly hair. I can straighten it, but boy-oh-boy is it ever a pain in the rear. It takes for flippin' ever and you have to dry it til your scalp is red from the heat of the Conair and brush it and, egads. Basically, forget it. So I have curly hair. I used to hate my locks when I was little because my mom would chop it off and everyone always thought I was a boy. Very traumatizing. I had a paper route when I was 10 til I was 12-years old. People REALLY thought I was a boy then. That is until they began noticing I was "developing." "Hey Enid! That paperboy's a girl!" Peeking out livingroom windows as I wobbled down the sidewalk on my 10-speed, 45 newspapers balanced around my neck in that canvas paper-carrier vest thing we wore back in the day, newly blossoming female body parts causing the papers to press uncomfortably against me. I had curly hair then, too. Only it was cropped and I was a chub and I looked like a fat boy carefully making my way down the street so as not to dump myself over with all of my papers. I was a meticulous paper-carrier. I would get off my bike and walk the paper up to the front step of each and every house on my route. I was too scared I would break a window if I tossed it. Besides which, Darryl, my route manager who dropped papers off every afternoon for me, talked about how every single kid he'd ever had under him had broken a window. He almost bragged about it. But he scared the Bejezus out of me with all of his stories of angry people chasing paper carriers down the street in their bathrobes and curlers. I didn't want anyone yelling at me. Getting mad. So I was the first to break that window breaking record, so to speak. Not one window ever got broken under my careful non-tossing reign. Grateful old ladies still tell my mother I was the bast paper carrier they ever had.

I was bitten by a dog once but I never told anyone because I was sure, somehow, it was my own fault the dog attacked. It lunged through the screen door at me as knocked on the door to collect the newspaper money for the month. The dog bit me through the mesh of the screen. The woman was totally apologetic, but I didn't say anything because she was a neighbor and her husband had left her and all she had left was that dog and I felt bad and it was probably all my fault anyway and I didn't want the Pound to come take it away from her.

Another time these two teenaged boys started chasing me on their bikes and I just stopped in the middle of the road. They almost knocked me over when one grabbed 3 newspapers out of my sack and took off with them, laughing. The other one realized I was a girl. Nick. That was his name. Nick; the one who knew I was a girl. I had a huge crush on him and he didn't know I existed. And his stupid friend took my newspapers and all I could think was I would have to give Daddy's paper to someone else and I'd have to go to the store and buy two more papers because that jackass had just taken my papers for my customers and I was going to be so late and I very nearly began to cry. I took my job pretty seriously. Then Nick stopped his friend and said something like, "C'Mon, she's only a kid." The other beastly boy threw the newspapers back at me and they were all scuffed and smudged from his hands, but I had them back. But I was devastated. Nick said I was only a kid. ::sob::

I hated my hair for years until I got old enough to not have to listen to my mother any longer and I could grow it longer and look like a girl, finally. But that wasn't until my sophomore year of high school. By then I had that I'm-a-girl-not-a-boy complex. But I grew my hair longer and longer, until by the late-80's I sported the cockatoo look, a somewhat mullety-looking 'do with massive bangs that nearly brought me airborne. By my 20's I was all about Edie Brickell and tried for the softer, hippieish look typified by no contour just length. Now in my 30's it's all about trying to just deal with it everyday, seeing the grey hairs popping up and attempting to assume the stance that grey = wisdom. Enter husband who doesn't like curly hair. Jaysus.

Maybe I'll pull a Sinnead.
~ZIP~
That'd take care of that.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 9:35 PM

Sunday, April 06, 2003

I hate it when code doesn't work.
I really, really, do.

Unfortunately I have nothing to relate today. Unusually unwordy.
Maybe it's the war. Or too many carbs. Or not enough sleep.
Who knows. At any rate, I have no desire to write.
Like I said, unusual.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 8:00 PM

I'm downloading Lamb from Kazoo, or Shazam or whatever that service is called.
I wish I could download a new brain.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 5:27 PM

Thursday, April 03, 2003

Saw DeLillo last night at the Herbst theater in San Francisco. Went with Linny & Dave. DeLillo was small. Diminutive and small-boned. His newest, Cosmopolis, was his purpose. He read. We listened. I dozed off. The language got so intricate, I was so tired, I leaned against Dave and slid in and out of the moment. Q & A was amusing. The first question was from a woman who had to tell her entire life story, how she's half Italian & English, how she'd flown down here from Seattle to see DeLillo and how she's left her copy of her book at the hotel and her boyfriend had gone back to get it for her. You could feel the audience's discomfiture. That "Why in the hell is she telling us this?" sentiment. She asked a question that sounded something like this, "I would love to hear what in your eloquent language what your visceral reactions are to what is happening in the Tigris." Huh? Lady, what in the world are you trying to say? In the Tigris? Lessee, there're some fish and maybe some boats and some river reeds. Damnation, why not just come right out and say, "How do you feel about what's going on with this war?" Eloquent. Visceral. In the Tigris. Boo, hiss. She had one of those tight, toned bodies, high-lighted hair and perfectly shaped brows, that mauve colored lipstick that women wear who have that security of their beauty and refusal to acknowledge that age is scratching at the door. Pretty, in that San Francisco, west coast way that combines tech-stock chic with Patchouli oil and Buddhist prayer beads. I'm sounding bitchy. It's because of that pseudo-question she asked. Attempting highbrow intellectualism and coming off like a yahoo.

Linny was totally enamored. I, as I have already said, dozed off. DeLillo's genius as a writer is irrefutable. He is something of a cult figure in certain literary circles, college Lit courses glom onto him like the next prophetic voice. But DeLillo is classic INTP, "Their major interest is in figuring out structure, build, configuration -- the spatiality of things." That describes DeLillo in that nutshell way. The spatiality of things. He limns language, a strict management. Stunning, really. But I still dozed off. Sometimes going to book readings after work when I have to drive for an hour...well, dozing happens.

[::sidenote:: Michael, since I'm having a horrible time answering your email, please check this out: ::this is the personality type I think describes you:: I'm not ignoring you, I'm just in hell mode at the moment. Forgive me. ::end sidenote::]

Friday. I am glad for Friday.

| Mrs. Botton was at it again @ 10:47 PM