Loving Someone

I have a (truly platonic) friend who I truly love who I hurt yesterday evening. And I wonder, why are some people able to be happy when life is craptastic and why are other people unable to be happy when life is somewhat off-kilter (although possibly leaning toward craptastic, craptastitude is still avoidable) and some other people are unable to be happy when the napkins are the wrong color?

My friend (hereinafter MF) is dealing with work and family crap. Nothing life-threatening, but not pleasant either. However, MF owns a nice home in a very nice urban suburb, has a job with good benefits, and has many interests. MF has often commented on how amazingly I have dealt with near-foreclosure, the Insane Ex, the tens of thousands (about $50,000, give or take) spent on getting the divorce, other financial difficulties, and health problems this spring. "How can you say you're happy?" I don't know, I just am.

I wasn't always optimistic. I used to be very negative and depressive, but that was when life was easier. How does that work?

So tonight, I listened to many, many details (but no coherent narrative) of what was wrong at work for MF and I got impatient, and started encouraging streamlining, which totally derailed the narrative, lost the plot, and hurt MF's feelings when MF was feeling more than a tad depressed.

Is there a medication that will make detail-oriented people stick to the big picture? Because that's what I think happens to many people who get lost in depression (it has happened to me, so I'm not claiming any superiority): the details overwhelm them. How to help?

This is especially of concern since MF has been seeing a therapist, but now thinks it's useless and why bother? Why? There are people who love MF, including me and several others.*

How did I hurt my friend? By listening critically rather than sympathetically. Now, some things in the situation need critique and correction, but right now isn't the time. How MF felt was more important than my need to point out how to handle things differently/better (that's what this blog is for, right?).

So I don't know what to do, not that I can change anyone's world view, or whether I even should. But I want to do so, especially when I see someone I love in pain and to me (but it's a YMMV situation) some of the fixes are pretty obvious. I have to remind myself that what would work for me doesn't work for everyone else on this planet, or in every other workplace, or every other family.

*You may wonder why I don't write "many others", but really how many is many? I can think of seven people who undubitably love MF and five others whose affection is strong and deep and while they might not define their feelings as "love" would at a minimum cop to strong affection, well wishes, and loyalty, and whose love and/or affection/good wishes/loyalty is worth receiving. Most people who have many, many acquaintances or "close friends" can't say that they have more than a handful of people who love them. MF has more than a handful.

And yet as one of those who loves MF, I feel like I've fallen short of the mark. Fortunately, I'll see MF tomorrow and hope to rectify matters a bit (and phone conversations are tough when someone is depressed: in person, one can gauge reactions more easily).

Inertia

Not me, although I'm a big fan of intertia whilst poolside and DG and TG are busy jumping and splashing and swimming. No, I'm thinking of my commute. I always have a book, a magazine or two, probably a newspaper or tabloid, and, of course, some good knitting. Whether I get a seat or simply am balancing whilst grabbing the overhead pole, I am doing something. Today, I was reading a magazine article and knitting (and not bumping into my seat-mate), yet taking a chance to survey my fellow commuters.

Unfortunately, few of my fellow commuters were doing anything at all. A couple were reading the Express. One was reading a Dean Koontz piece-o'-crap (no, those aren't actual books), and one law firm employee was editing a brief in draft format. Two Hill or think tank staffers were reading policy papers. Everyone else (more than 30 people) was either listening to music or sitting doing nothing. I don't understand having between 20-60 minutes a day where one does nothing. Now, I admit, I'm a busy single mother: I have to use any free time to accomplish anything I have any hope to achieve, whether that is reading a book, knitting a sweater, or snarking at fellow citizens. Maybe it's just envy that makes me sneer at my fellow commuters who have nothing they want to achieve between 7:45 and 8:30 A.M. and 5:00 and 5:45 P.M. (give or take ten minutes).

I don't want to lose that hour and a half every day. I have books I want to read, UFOs*to complete knitting. MNOT agrees with me. We both have a morbid fear of being without a book in a situation where we have to stay put. TG is beginning to pick up this good phobia. She always has a book or two with her (even when going to play tennis or do karate). Last week, in school, she had to list something that was worthy of a celebration, and she wrote: "I found a book I like."

So, I don't want to judge, but can't help it. What kind of person chooses to do nothing during 30 to 45 minutes of enforced idleness? I try to imagine, to have empathy: a tired person? If they're more tired than I am with a full-time job, a four year old, a nine year old, and what-have-you, I'll eat a rutabaga (I'm otherwise quite unlikely to do that). This is supposed to be a highly educated (but no-one said "highly intellectually curious", obviously) town, yet all these self-proclaimed smart, ambitious, and very, very busy people won't grab an opportunity to read a book or magazine? I understand not doing craft stuff like knitting on Metro. Even with a seat, it takes a fair amount of coordination to not annoy one's fellow commuters. But books? Especially know with the little handheld computerized book-readers, which I can't stand, but I'm glad they're out there for people who like them and can afford them. And I suppose some people who I think are listening to music could be watching podcasts of important policy addresses, but most of them look like (and it sounds like, since their earphones, for the most part, aren't of the highest quality and thus inflict their musical choices on their fellow travellers) they're just sitting there listening to modern music of varying types.

Obviously, this is a legitimate lifestyle choice, and it reflects ill on me that I sniff on it. I think it's the Scandinavian/Yankee parts of me (pretty much all of me): you know, idle hands do the devil's work. I was raised to take real pleasure in doing things. Even reading a book sometimes seems too idle, although I don't let that stop me. So I just don't get the, "oh, I'll do absolutely nothing" mindset, unless I'm on vacation. Maybe they're all on vacation? Or maybe they're just different than I am, shockingly enough. I've got to work on this judgmental thing.

*UFO = Unfinished Object, in the knitting universe. Once you have more than two or three, they become more terrifying than flesh-eating-alien zombies, which is probably a movie Insane Ex will let DG see.

Crazy Love

I wrote this back in November, but hey, I didn't publish it:

Nov. 8, 2008: Craxy Love is one of my favorite Rita Coolidge songs, along with (I've Always Called Them) Mountains. I've been overwhelmed with how much love I have in my life these last few weeks. Innana got Noah and the Whale's CD to play in the car (well, not just for that, but there you go) and my girls do a great back-seat-dancing rendition of In Five Year's Time.


TigerGrrl, 5' tall, 90 pounds (wringing wet), age nine, still likes to sit in my lap and read with me. DestructoGirl likes to do "flipovers" (you know, where the kid holds your hands, climbs up your body with her legs, and then does a somersault in mid air, with glee), and promised to be good today, getting the promise out of me that if she was "really good" she could do five flipovers when she got home.

But nothing says love like two kids in the back seat of the car as you drive up to Sugarloaf for a hike on a fall day, singing their little hearts out (changing "fun, fun, fun" and "love, love, love" to "yodel, yodel, yodel" or "moo, moo, moo" (upon seeing cows) to the tune of Five Years Time). Also, even semi-immobilized by child-safety restraints, my girls are better dancers than the members of Noah and the Whale. Noah and the Whale look pretty cool, but seem to be trying to prove, even more conclusively than the Royal Dragoon Guards did, in their Show Me the Way to Armadillo video, that white men can't dance. As I've said before: consider it proven and STOP DOING THAT. And the air guitar. Really. Guitar Hero is no excuse. If you really want to prove you're deeply dorky, this is the age of tattoos. Get "I'm a dancing dork" or just "Deeply dorky" tattooed right below your receding hairline. Thank you.


White men of the universe: stick to the slow dancing. Fewer people will notice that you have no idea what you are doing.


But back to the subject at hand: there's still a lot of post-divorce and financial crisis crap in my life right now. The latest is that the InsaneEx didn't see the need to stop a friend of his from putting on Friday the Thirteenth, Part IV (I haven't seen it, but I believe it's raison d'etre is to kill people in increasingly gory ways) on the DVD and letting TG and DG (ages 9 and 4!!!!) watch the movie on Hallowe'en. I now need to watch the movie and look and the different ways of dispatching annoying people, entirely for the purposes of reassuring my children who are way too young for that dreck, and not at all for the purpose of actually attempting any of the methods illustrated on the InsaneEx and his fuckwitted friend.


Of course, the girls are fine, although DG did describe the plot and methods of dispatch to me a bit too clearly. The urge to maim prior to murder is still with me. I'll overcome it, but ugh.


Nonetheless, I have these loving and adorable kids who love me, who love Innana, who have weathered the past few years so well. Their path to global domination seems pretty smooth at present. Sure, I'm biased, but that doesn't mean I'm not right.


And I had a Tiger for Hallowe'en, and it wasn't TG. Innana got DG a tiger costume for Halloween, and was DG ever pleased with herself. Not that that's a surprise. Her standard reaction to most situations is to be happy and pleased with herself.

Dumb Person Derby

Just like RudeCactus, I see dumb people. I'd rather see dead people (they don't annoy me with their stupidity), but dead people generally don't travel by mass transit unless they've thrown themselves under a train or bus, in which case, they often qualify as dumb people. Yes, I know that's hardhearted, and suicide is a tragedy, etc., etc. This doesn't change the generally low intelligence quotient of the members of the general public who cross your and my paths.

Tonight, while waiting for the bus to take me home from the Metro, I had the not-too-highly-sought-after oppurtunity to listen to a facially pierced early twenties uptalker (you know, where every sentence sounds like a question?) talk to a friend/aquaintance/or possibly random recipient of cell-phone dialing. Somehow, she had lost her purse on the train. Her purse contained her ID, her money, the phone number of the friend she had travelled to see (apparently that wasn't in her cell phone -- ???) and everything else she needed for survival.

Now, I express no disdain for the loss or theft of the purse. Mass transit is a marvellous opportunity for the lightfingered lacking morals and it is a sandtrap for those of us who arent' all that focused or slightly distracted.* But once you've lost your purse, your credit card, your whatever else you've lost, use the gray matter you've got.

Lost-purse-person was bemoaning to her friend/acquaintance/total stranger the loss of her purse, how she was stuck at the station for the forseeable future (Did she really call someone long distance? If you were without resources at a Metro station/bus stop wouldn't you call someone who might just possibly come get you?)

The friend/acquaintance/total stranger, named Richard, listened, apparently without interruption while lost-purse-person (hereinafter LPP) nattered on at length about how her cell phone was about to lose its charge.

Up until then I had been ready to step in and be helpful, but after listening to LPP yammer on with rising intonation sentences chatter for more than fifteen minutes, it occured to me that someone who was worrying about losing a cell phone charge but who did not have the capability of hanging up the goddamned phone (being used to vent, not to make essential arrangements) perhaps needed to discover what would happen when the cell phone ran out of its charge.

I'm feeling mildly guilty -- I could have interrupted and said "Excuse me, but if you're worried about the cell phone charge, why not turn it off until you can think clearly enough to make a plan?" But that would have been mean-spirited, and my bus then arrived. LPP continued chatting, worrying about her cell phones diminishing charge, but not doing anything to stop that charge from diminishing further. Some people you just can't help.

I remember reading a blog a few weeks ago by a person bemoaning calls from nasty (unpaid) creditors. And then describing Coach and other purchases made (saving so much money!) on the Eastern Shore. Maybe this was a relative of LPP? I mean, if you can't pay your bills, isn't the first step stopping spending money? Just like if you really want your cell phone charge to last, stop the conversation call-and-chat and save the charge for the AAA call or the ambulance or the cab?

Or am I being too judgmental?


*Who can count the lost umbrellas of Foilwoman? Not me. I just pick them up free at the Red Cross now, after giving platelets, as I assume I will mislay them on a fairly regular timetable.

That One Talent, Which Is Death to Hide

Probably a misquote from Milton's "On His Blindness", but I don't have the energy to double check right now. I had a terrifying experience this afternoon. I was researching something online (pretty much what I do at work everyday) when I looked down and then looked at the screen at it was suddenly as if I were looking at a reflection in a badly cracked mirror when drunk. Or what I imagine that would be like, as I have never done that.

I blinked, I rubbed my eyes, but everything I regarded remained shattered and doubled. Somehow I made my way to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water multiple times. Perhaps on time ten or twenty (it wasn't two or three), I could see my face in non-Picasso vision, close up, although further away sights were still fragmented. I kept splashing my face and eyes with water and finally was able to see the room as a single vision entity. No pain, but real disorientation.

What was that all about, and how much should I worry. I do fine needlework and my eyes get tired (and my feet do too, thank you Lowell George), but I don't think that's it. It makes me worry if I'm overreacting and getting all hypochondriacal, or underreacting and not addressing an actual threat to my well-being. All seems fine now.

This on top of news, last Friday, that I need yet another (three so far, so this will be the fourth) hernia repair (okay, the first one, an inguinal hernia at age three, doesn't count) hernia repair, the third umbilical hernia since 2002. This one will be laparascopic, but pretty invasive, as mesh will be placed underneath the abdominal muscle (what's left of it). C'mon universe, I just don't want to deal with ill-health crap and anything that will interfere with pool season.

I'm stalling on the hernia repair until fall, but the vision stuff? Ugh. I can't imagine (actually, yes I can, but it's not a daydream, it's a daymare) becoming blind or having extremely limited vision. I really hope I'm overreacting. Please tell me that I'm overreacting and why. Thank you.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Bluebirds Fly

Easter weekend the FoilKids, Innana, and I drove down to Buncombe County, North Carolina (not really, but there really is a Buncombe County, NC -- this is it's oceanside equivalent -- but the fact that the residents of Buncombe County, NC didn't have the sense to change the name, like all the people surnamed Lipschitz out there, makes you wonder if some people are beyond helping) to visit DOL, Innana's mother, and NiQ.


It was a great weekend. TG and DG swam (well, fell) in the ocean (it was warmer than the Atlantic off the coast of Maine in the summer), ran around in warm weather, cooked crepes (TG), and were cute and cuddly for DOL's edification (DG). But for me, the best part of the weekend was the birdwatching. There were mockingbirds, grackles, chickadees, robins, sparrows, bluejays, woodpeckers, and, best of all, bluebirds. DOL has a family of bluebirds nesting on her property, and so does her across the street neighbor.


As a child, I was 9 (I think) on Earth Day's first celebration. I knew that DDT killed lots of birds, and European songbirds supplanted native North American songbirds like the bluebirds. But they are back.

And that's a good thing. Seeing bluebirds makes me happy, even if it takes me two weeks or more to write about it.