Curious Tuesday, volume 7

I’m to that if-I-have-to-write-or-edit-one-more-article-I’m-going-to-flay-someone’s-skin-and-then-make-them-eat-it time of day. It usually comes right after that sick-of-feigning-happiness time of week and just before that knitting-in-the-shower-listening-to-massive-attack-while-possibly-crying time of week. So it’s time to ignore my job for a little bit and indulge in a little curious tuesday-ing.

(If you haven’t noticed, the semi-colon has been de-throned and the hyphen is my new favorite punctuation mark. Who doesn’t love a tidal wave of hyphens?)

Anyway, I was going to write a post about marriage anyway, when this issue of Curious Tuesday popped up.

Image by ✭Lou✭ via Flickr

1. How do you feel about marriage as a concept? Realistic? Romantic? A pipe-dream?

Okay, well this has several answers. First, let’s address marriage as an institution recognized by the government: I completely disagree with the way marriage is treated by the American government today. Frankly it’s none of their business. I do recognize that some recognition of a coupling by the government is necessary to keep society in order. However, I think that the government has no say in who a person should be able to marry (except for minors, of course. Minors should be protected). Our current civil unions are closer to my ideal, but I think that whatever recognition the government hands out should not discriminate, even based on whether or not the relationship is romantic – if I want to combine my life, responsibilities and taxes with any other consenting adult, I should be able to.

As for marriage as a religious institution, I have no opinion of it. Nor interest in it. That is no one’s business but the engaged couple.

Marriage as a specific, individually-created vow, however, I do believe in. For a long time I didn’t understand the purpose of the ceremony, but I’m starting to grasp it more. When I get married, I don’t necessarily want it recognized by the government or any church – but it will still be a marriage. The ceremony will include promises made in front of friends and family. This is an umbrella over all the other questions surrounding what a “marriage” actually is – promises concerning monogamy, practical implications, length, etc. should all be thoughtfully invented by each individual couple.

I know. I’m so romantic. Call Nicholas Sparks, because he’s going to want to write this stuff down.

2. Do you think you’ll ever want to get married?

Yes. I want to for sure. But, obviously, one person abstractly wanting to is far from what’s needed to actually get married.

3. If you did get married, would you want a big blow-out celebration or would you keep it low-key?

I think this question is actually about how much money I want to spend on the ceremony and reception. My answer is: not much at all. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a big beautiful blow-out celebration.

These last two questions don’t apply to me, but if you readers are married, answer them! Please. We can all learn from your experience.

4. If you are married now, how has that changed your relationship?
5. If you’re married, how did you celebrate it? Knowing what you know now, would you have done it differently?

A few of the many reasons why Anais Nin is the shit.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish it’s source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.”

“There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.”

“When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.”

“I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic — in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.”

“When one is pretending the entire body revolts”

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”

I could just keep going and going with quotes and pictures of this magnificent lady. In many ways, she is the exact opposite of me – she is what I despise or fear sometimes, sometimes what I wish I could be, sometimes what I was and have lost. Every time I see any book by her, no matter how many copies of that book I already have, I just have to get it. I have no choice. Her early journals, one of the few books I do not yet have, arrived in the mail today from Paperbackswap. Swoon.

Curious Tuesday, Volume 3

Image by joeywan via Flickr

Here is the original post – go look at it. There are pretty pictures. (This was written on June 13. Once again I don’t want to flood the blog with the same kind of posts, so I’m scheduling it. Maybe all of my answers will be totally different by June 22. If they are, I will edit the post.)

1. Who is your #1 crush?

I have no idea! Maybe it’s YOU.

2. Have you ever tried online dating? How did it go? Any tips?

When I was sad and pregnant I set up an account on okcupid that I knew I would get a lot of compliments from – selfish, I know. I just wanted to feel the way I usually do after first meeting people – the first impressions I give are usually more interesting than what comes after. Anyway, about a week later I made all messages from okcupid skip my inbox and go straight to my gmail archives. A couple weeks ago I remembered my account existed, and now I’m kind of horrified to go look at it.
As for tips, I think I just tried to be disarmingly genuine, and only talked about the parts of my life that make me different from the crowd. There’s such a predominant “crowd” in my area that being different (without any affectation) brings you a lot of attention. I’ve been deeply aware of this since I was a young kid, and it kind of bothers me now. Using something genuine as a way to get what I want is like this gross habit I have now, and the hypocrisy of it is disgusting. Now you know about it and you can slap my wrist if you catch me accidentally doing it.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that I will eventually resort to online dating to find someone that I actually want to meet. The statistics of online dating are impressive. Not that I have the will to google them right now.

3. Are you sentimental? Do you keep the things other people give you?

Indeed I do. Thinking of the most sentimental objects I have, I think I accidentally stole most of them from people I love. Whoops.

4. As a child, what were your primary interests?

Being the best at everything all the time. Crushing up plants and pretending to be an apothecary. Trying to get deer to live in my front yard. Walking in straight lines. Wearing more than one skirt at once. Staring out the car window assessing the properties we drove by; trying to guess what happens in their secret spots. Little fuzzy animals in cages. Doing anything I could to make money.

5. What are your top 3 guilty pleasures?

I’m trying to think of actual guilty pleasures – the kind I would be too embarrassed to admit to anyone. Because that is really the only way to give this question an interesting answer. Well, I can at least make an attempt: I like to stand barefoot on hot asphalt until it feels like my feet are on fire. I like to walk around aimlessly at night, indulging in despondency. I like to be part of pretty pictures and I make that a priority. I like to lie on my bed and think about the things I know I shouldn’t think about; the things that will just make everything worse. Don’t tell anyone.

misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms

Speaking of Shakespeare, I’m going to go see him in two weeks. And I’m very excited about it.

October 2009

June 2010

How did that happen? I will tell you how it happened: breastmilk. I’m becoming one of those crazypants nursing advocates. To the point where I will nurse Grady (under a blanket) while working in the office. Gasp! Shut up, imagined disapproving masses; she was on my application. And they’re just boobs and you’re not even going to see them. Relax. Not to mention how breastfeeding is one of the best choices a mother can make, and how the nourishment I provide has allowed Grady to flourish and become a healthy, thriving, alert baby.

(I don’t want to worry about segues, but I don’t want to lean on bullet points. So excuse the choppy writing.)

I haven’t been writing as much here lately. I don’t think I have much to write about anymore – it’s kind of all been said. Plus I’ve been busy; not busy enough to not be able to write a blog post, but busy enough to keep my mind occupied on something other than this kind of junk. This is either a good thing, or it’s denial.

I respectfully decline this week’s Curious Tuesday. Maybe later. Hopefully later.

I feel kind of stupid about something. Let’s call it Option B, for lack of a better term (there is no lack of less-ambiguous terms, but this is the internet, where ambiguity is king). Anyway, it took me a while to think that Option B was something I could even consider. But then I did consider it, and that was awesome. And freeing. And it got to the point where I had no doubt in my mind that Option B wasn’t just another something I fabricated – that it was likely where my life was going. Anyway, Option B disappeared while I was looking away. So I just feel foolish about it. I’ve got this little rehearsed reaction for when people ask about the disappearance, saying that just knowing that Option B was something that existed is nice enough, but really my pessimistic gut is just saying that Option B exists and it’s not interested in me. Ugh. Ambiguity is gross.

On another note, GO CHECK OUT THE V. I made it with the help of some awesome people and it is great. If you can, get a printed copy. Because that’s some-high-percent better than the online version. Actually, as I’m writing this the June 21 issue of the online version does not exist and I don’t understand why.

Sigh. Have I talked about having two lives here yet? I don’t know if I have, but I’m gonna. In my journal I’ve established the terms “Self 1″ and “Self 2.” #1 is the person who’s been alive for almost 21 years. #2 is the person who lives just for Grady. #2, I think, is doing a pretty find job. #1 is kind of a mess. I flip flop so easily between having a large ego and hating myself because sometimes #2 lets #1 have some time to be crazy. Anyway, the point of this explanation is this: While #2 has a plan and is confident, #1 doesn’t know what the hell she is doing. I don’t get paid to do the only job I love and am qualified for that will let me keep Grady out of daycare. It looks like my years of not having to pay tuition (due to an employee waiver from my retiring stepdad) are quickly coming to a close. Money is an issue. Solitude is an issue. Relationships are an issue. Identity is an issue. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And every single option I have thought of to fix #1′s life would be at the expense of #2 – so they are no longer an option. Option B was, but only for like 2 weeks.

#2 has some unanswered questions and problems to solve too – don’t get me wrong.

This post is already too long and rambly. You should go to this blog; his posts have pictures and very few words and they say so much more than I ever do.

Nevermind

Image by Oregon State University Archives via Flickr

The point is: It’s not important that you know how much I hate that word, because you’ll probably become a “nevermind” yourself.

But I do hate it. It means I did something wrong. It means I got my hopes up. It’s a step backwards – which on the outside is as simple as it sounds, but really requires sleepless nights and long stares and stupid grasps at physical change (like ugly haircuts or accidental scars or bruises). Each “nevermind” is a goodbye, and I hate goodbyes. With each “nevermind” an entire life is gone; usually that can be taken figuratively, occasionally it is literal. I still can’t adjust to the big “nevermind,” even now 511 days (12,264 hours) later. This one makes my latest batch of “neverminds” seem slight, I guess. I don’t know. The difference doesn’t make me feel more powerful than any of it.

Thinking of the older people I know, it seems like they have escaped the “nevermind.” They don’t seem agitated by its torment. Do they stop hoping? Or do they just get better at hope, gaining a sense of what hopes will turn traitor? Or are they just better at hiding it?

Silver lining:

• Grady is beautiful. Obviously, she has given me the luxury of being able to toss-and-turn myself into a blog post at 5 a.m. I never thought of sadness as a luxury until I became a mom.
• I transplanted some beautiful local blackberry plants today. Without me they would have died in a green plastic bucket, and now they’ll become the energy that eventually helps Grady run around the backyard and grow hair.