My Tent on The Beach

I just installed a showerhead.  I’ve been waiting anxiously for it to come in the mail, having picked it out months ago and waited until it was on sale enough that I could “afford” this “luxury.”  I’m most excited about the fact that my skin won’t smell like chlorine after a shower anymore.  And that was my Friday night.

It’s that part of the summer, that part of the year, that part of the week, I guess, when people are doing their “summer” things–traveling, barbecuing in the backyard, spending quality time that they don’t often get–that usually leaves me installing a showerhead and calling it an evening.  I suppose it’s the price I pay for being non-busy, non-married, non-with-children, maybe non-inspired and hoping for something outside of myself to create a little interest or buzz or energy.  I’m not sure why I still think this will work; looking outside of myself for anything has only ever ended in disaster.  And so I lay here on my couch, trying to pump myself up to watch a movie and wondering how I get myself some of those things that make installing a showerhead a weekday chore to be reminsced about over a gin and tonic on the back porch with someone who’s interesting and interested.  It doesn’t seem like that much to ask but yet remains deceptively elusive. Maybe someday there’ll be a trace of this scene.

But not today.

I want to make it okay that this is what this evening holds…but it’s not just about this evening.  I often wonder if anyone ever remember how it feels to hear some iteration of “I’m too busy for you,” when they’re saying it to someone else.  I’ve just never understood this idea.  “But Katie,” they’ll say, “you just don’t understand because you have so much time and you don’t have responsibilities to worry about.”

“Well,” I think, “that’s just the shittiest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” It appears I have a lot of time because I make time for people who need to talk, people who want to get together, people who need a hand with something, people who need a place to stay.  I bend and compromise; I practice understanding and compassion; I wipe my feet before entering; I bring a bottle of wine; I’m good for a laugh.  But it just never seems enough.  Because when push comes to shove, I just don’t understand enough what it means to have responsibilities–or relationships–to care for.  It’s only the thing I do every day…silently and with no symbols or markers to signify my work or care.  No. My work is silent and invisible and I should be happy for the time I do get…

…because after all…people are busy…and I have so much time.

I’m sick about it.

Today is one of those days.  You know the kind…my brain is just churning out a lot of thoughts that are good but really disjointed.  So, for instance, as I was waiting for my post-yoga raisin toast to prepare itself via the magic toaster this was my train of thought:

I wonder why yesterday the toaster burned the toast and today, without touching the toaster or doing anything differently, the toast is perfect? Where did I leave my flip-flops? I wonder if an all-girls high school education actually made me more masculine than many men I know? I should take a shower. Almost done with IRB. That breeze is cool. I wonder how other people experience pain?

Literally…that was in two minutes.  I walked home from yoga this morning; it took about 25 minutes and I had a lifetime’s worth of conversation with myself.  Going in 25 directions.  Whenever this happens I feel the distinct need to write everything down as quickly as possible.  There could be good nuggets of something in there which only time will reveal.  But despite this mental chattering, there was one thought I kept coming back to, I think because it didn’t originate in my brain.

In the 2 or 3 moments in between crazy shooting thoughts, I actually felt compassion.  I’ve been reading this book by Pema Chodron called The Places that Scare You and I assumed it would be a lot about fear.  It’s actually more about the opposite of fear, which as it turns out, is compassion.  Who knew?  Maybe this is where I’ve gone wrong all these years. Here’s a picture just in case you want to read (and you really should…what else are you really doing?)

Anyway I usually don’t feel ideas; I think about them, dissect them, think more about them, start to worry about them, get anxious about them, then am exhausted and can’t sleep.  That’s usual.  But, I’ve really been working on “heart opening”–I interpret it more as willing myself to feel things rather than approach them intellectually.  It’s given more dimension to my ideas; we all think a lot about love or anger or hurt.  We ultimately want to manage them, so we approach them as events and then get a plan to deal with them.  But I’m learning that if we feel them, they actually have textures…things we can grip onto a little bit and push our edges.  In other words, I think I’m learning that if we feel things, we can grow in ways that thinking about them cannot approach.

But, back to compassion.  So, I think “heart opening” is working a bit.  I was practicing feeling compassion which isn’t empathy or sympathy.  In those, we place ourselves in the shoes of others (sympathy) or recalling when we’ve actually shared the experience of another (empathy) and felt with them.  Compassion, I think, is the following step.  In compassion we stay in our own shoes, recognize the place of another (be it filled with suffering or joy), and then love them as only we can.  It’s not sharing the experience; it’s just opening our arms and loving, regardless of what happens to us or what we’ll get out of it.  I think compassion is the act of giving away love unconditionally.  We always approach that idea from the receiver’s end…I haven’t really even imagined what it feels like to give it.  I think it’s a good thing.

So this is what I’m feeling about today.  Even writing this down has slowed the chatter.  And it makes me think that in order to give this…dude, you gotta tap into a kind of strength that you just have to trust you have…because I think it’s tough.  You may hurt in the process.  But its completely worth it, I think. I mean, I feel.

Ha-HAH. Caught myself there.

Where to begin?  My little brother got married on Saturday.  Married.  The same kid we sent down the ice track we built in the ravine (which apparently only exist in Cleveland) to make sure no one else would get hurt and who said things like “Gabuter” (computer) when he was 3 is wearing a wedding band.  I’d say “surreal” except that I’ve got a Hungarian sleeping on my couch waiting for Fedex to come everyday to deliver his passport so he can drive back to Yellowknife Canada.  I’ve also got yoga class 4 days a week, I own a car and have absolutely no money to pay for it and I’m on a PhD track.  Oh, and my other brother’s going to have a baby in February.  What the heck is going on here.

Life can be full of interesting moments.  For the past 3 months I’ve been sweating blood, so consumed in my own struggles.  As it turns out, life continued on around me.  For some (my brothers), I re-surfaced just in time.  Weddings and babies, though moments that might not be part of my own journey, are  not moments to miss.  Andras appearing out of nowhere just when I was wondering when and if I’d ever see him again is a fortuitous happenstance…but not one that’s not been enjoyable.  The universe, I think, must’ve interceded…I feel like a different person for having witnessed all of it.

Tomorrow will bring a new day with different, better insights.  But what I know is this: for the past 3 weeks I have better thoughts about my life, my career, and myself than I have for a long time…and it’s because I was busy thinking about other people.

Giving always means receiving if only in the craziest of ways.  I’m glad I was awake enough to catch all of it.  Here’s to more of that!

I just noticed today that I haven’t written in awhile because life in Chicago (which is sweltering in a 90-degree heat blanket that won’t go away) has become both listless and busy.  It’s a paradox.  But as I walk down the street, I’ve been noticing weird things happening; also as I check Facebook and e-mail (occasionally, of course…okay 90x an hour) I find just weirdnesses.  Maybe it’s the heat…which would explain why New Orleans (okay, all of the Deep South) seems fully of crazies.  Here’s a list of the latest and least explicable:

1. A car burst into flames in front of my building on Monday night, filling my apartment with smoke and making me believe I was going to have to jump out my window (of course, I have back stairs but you know how panic can affect even the most rational mind.)

Here’s the aftermath.  The charred remains were particularly disturbing in person and, though it’s been towed, no one will park in that spot…it remains open…perhaps as a memory of the innocent and fallen.

2. On Facebook today I had no less than 20 “pages you might like” suggestions based on what my friends have recently “liked.”  Included and making sense were Starbucks and Free Things to Do in Chicago.  Included and making no sense were KFC, Sex and the City: The 2nd AWFUL movie, kittens, and the Twilight series (which incidentally had over 8 MILLION fans)…needless to say, none of them got my “like” of approval.

3. Several Fridays ago as Andras (my current couch-crashing, Marx-loving, Hungarian friend) and I were out and about running errands we personally saw three people hit the deck.  We also saw blood shed on those incidents.  One involved a motorized scooter and a woman carrying a VCR in a box.  On that same day we actually witnessed a guy get hit by a car, turn around and walk back to the corner, at which point he and the driver “worked it out.”  Seriously.  I’m still scarred by this particularly series of events.

4. Last night I (and Andras) ate dinner with virtual strangers (one of them was a former student of his that he “kinda” knew).  It was 4 hours long.  And I ended up going to their apartment which…it right across the street from mine…and met their dog Peanut and cat Tomato and saw their balcony garden and the guy’s (David’s) humongous oil paintings.  I felt like I was in a Willy Wonka movie.  The Johnny Depp one.

5. My brother Andy told me he bought a book for me. It’s by Glenn Beck.  It’s the one lying on his bathroom floor.  Exactly where EVERY piece of shit Glenn Beck produces should be located.  I left it there as a symbol of its appropriateness.

6. This morning I did yoga on the beach at 6:30am.  When we started the lake was placid and clear.  After a pose sequence we did with our eyes closed, it was so hot already that steam was rising off the surface of the lack.  I think I witnessed the birth of humidity.  I was appalled.

7.  Last week I bought 2 new pairs of flip-flops, one pair with a little bit of a wedge heel and one pair flat.  For the next two days I referred to the pair with the heels as “my dress shoes.”  No one questioned it. Riiiiiight.

8. I’ve been craving Thai and sushi for 3 weeks.  Thai, unfortunately, I always crave on Mondays and as any connoisseur of Thai food knows…they’re always closed on Mondays .  Yesterday we planned to go for sushi and in my head I was like, “Sweet…thank god it’s not Monday.”  When we got there it was closed.  For the summer, they decided to close on Tuesdays instead.  Argh.

I usually like to end on an odd number but I seem destined to be foiled by this weirdo universe these days.  Thus, despite wracking my brain, I can only think of 8 really good things right now.  But consider it just a taste of what’s been going on around here…which is heat-induced nuttiness.

Oooh…I thought of one more:

9.  Yesterday we were watching the World Cup game between Uruguay and the Netherlands (which, by the way, have you ever considered the actual name of that country?  The Netherlands….like the Hinterlands only a smidge closer? Further south?).  The Dutch (who hail, inexplicably from the Netherlands…why not call them the Nethers?) won.  Andras was convinced and argued seriously that it was because of the effects of colonialism.  To reiterate…he wasn’t joking.  I was actually speechless.

Give me a great #10 from your life and you’ll make my whole day…if only to prove that it’s not just my own little microcosm that’s gone all helter-skelter.

Did you know that the hips are one of the areas that can hold the most tension in the body?  Because I sure didn’t…and I can’t say I was surprised to hear this.  My hips are tighter than [insert image of something very tight...if you think of something good, write it in the comments].  My whole body is muscularly tight…I always attributed it to the 15 years of piecemeal weight lifting I used to do for various sports in high school.  You know…you do the stuff that’s the easiest (like calves, quads, hamstrings) and skip the other stuff (upper body).  What I’ve ended up with is a full set of seriously tight joints.  I never really thought tension itself was to blame.

Given this hip “issue,” I’ll tell you my life can really suck sometimes.  Sitting hunched at a computer for long stretches doesn’t help.  So, this is all a long way of saying, tight hips in yoga means pain (and not just stupid pain but gut-wrenching, fiery, scorching, lightning bolts of pain up the front, back, and sides of my legs)…in nearly every pose possible.  I can’t touch my toes, sit on my knees, or hang out in down-dog without trembling…why…you got it…hips.

So I’ve been really focusing on these things.  And you wanna know what I’ve come to conclude is working…thinking about them.  It’s Harold Hill’s “think method” from the music man.  I swear it’s working.  I’ve been thinking about my hips loosening up…and I think they are.  And here’s why I think it works.  Whenever I approached them as so tight, I think I would brace myself for the ensuing pain.  And it was real…because the bracing was a tension.  Today (and it helps that it’s about 90 degrees here), I felt like they were more open before I even bent anywhere and guess what…palms almost to ground.  Magical.

But so what?  Who cares about my hips?  Even I don’t care about my hips.  But I did think it’s an interesting lesson if applied elsewhere in life.  Imagine what would happen if every time we approached something we dread, instead of bracing for it and expecting scorching pain, we just thought about things as “looser”?  We might have a chance at being much happier and generally cooler than we have ever been in our entire lives.

I like the “think method.”  I think it could work.

Well, well.  In completely typical fashion, Chicago’s gone and gotten all hot and humid, once again banishing any hopes for a nice sliiiiiiiide into summer.  I’m not sure why I still hope for that; I’ve lived around the Great Lakes my entire life and somehow I’ve never really experienced the change of seasons as something gradual.  Whether spring or fall, it usually begins and ends with a seasonal line drawn in the sand.  Yesterday could’ve been 65 and rainy; today you wake up and it’s 90 and renders all clothing hot, wooly, wet blankets.  So today, I’m caught in the “it’s so hot it I’m nauseous” feeling of late August and a little worried that it’s only June 23.

Thus, I’m going to blame a couple of my own lazinesses directly on the swoon.  This is why life in the deep South in general feels so leisurely–the heat actually causes (maybe forces) life to slow down.  Also, it drives you to drink and it’s well established that alcohol slows everything down too.  So why haven’t I written here in awhile?  Clearly…it’s the swoon.

But I’ll also say this (whether or not the swoon is to blame here I don’t know): This time of the year becomes intensely boring for me.  Summer scheules annoy the hell out of me; they’re too flabby.  To be clear, my schedule is always flabby, so I rely on the schedules of others to be my “schedule corset” if you will.  Now, we’re all a little flabby around the schedule and it’s bordering on what I may describe as just “stupid.”  No purpose, no momentum, no desire for either purpose or momentum.  Ew.  I’ve had very little to think about, write about, or describe in what seems like weeks.  I saw a lot of people last week, had a lot of conversations, was out and about.  Did any of them really make a mark on anything? No.  It was oddly non-descript “business as usual.”  I felt like I missed a lot of opportunities last week and yet I never stopped moving.  Maybe ultimately I was uncomfortable with all of that and decided not to reflect on it…I don’t know.

This also might be the calm after the storm.  The past couple months have been intensely taxing; I can’t believe I’m gonna say it but I’ve never been that stressed out in my whole life (and I’m always stressed out).  No, no.  This was stress at all new levels.  Now a lot of that has dissipated whether for good or for bad.  I’m wondering if I just don’t know how to deal with non-stress.  That would be sad…and also a real paradox.  Maybe I’ve overdosed on yoga.

All I’m saying is this: a little snap in the air, a cool fresh breeze…and I think life happens a little more freely.  Slogging through this wet blanket…makes me just want to give up on the day and watch tv.  Which is narcotizing, yes…but leaves very little to actually think about.

[Sigh.]

[Sweat.]

[Sigh again.]

It has been awhile, hasn’t it…since the last “friends can be asses” installment?  I knew it was only a matter of time.

In my last post, I discussed the disrupted communication chain when a friend of mine chose not to answer an e-mail.  At that point I was annoyed. So, what does any self-respecting neurotic do?  Of course, I called.  And the phone call went unreturned. Panic ensued.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so anxious.  So what? So he didn’t call back? Big deal.  But, oh…it was a BIG deal to me.  An unreturned e-mail is one thing; maybe something got lost or it was forgotten.  Okay.  But an unreturned phone call?!? No, no.  This was not good from someone who meticulously returns every phone call ever received, even from people he actively dislikes.  I was sincerely worried this non-return was meaningful.

Such was the case that I was scheduled to run into said unresponsive friend later in the week but by the time that happened worry and annoyance turned into a roiling, white-hot fury.  (There were other things going on, of course.  This isn’t my usual reaction to this type of thing…but he stepped into it big time.)  The fury stemmed from my feeling completely ignored (cue the “Fatal Attraction soundbite, “I will NOT be IGNORED.”  This is why I worry about myself).  This was an active non-communication.  Thus, the following equations sums up how that scheduled meeting went:

Katie’s white hot fury + Friend’s pretending nothing was out of the usual = Katie’s Icy Cold, White Hot Fury Smile.

(I knew how it felt on the inside and I’m not lying when I tell you I scared myself.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one receiving it.)  If you know me personally, I’m generally pretty warm and friendly…generally.  When I’m angry, imagine that warm friendliness collapsing in on itself and turning inside out into Ice Queen meets Psycho Killer.  It’s not one of my prouder traits. Cue his panic.  I felt vindicated for 2.5 seconds and then I felt like I just kicked a dog or something.  I proceeded to be Ice Queen for roughly five minutes and then realized 1) it was stupid and 2) I couldn’t keep it up for a prolonged period of time and I was having a hard time breathing, so I decided to cave.  He knew right away what I was upset about. Of course he knew.  His reason for non-response…”I was busy.”

Oh man. White hot fury momentarily returned.

We discussed and I hated myself the whole time because I sounded like one big “woman” cliche…in the end, the point that was taken was it would’ve been better to respond quickly and say he was busy than do nothing.  He apologized…of his own volition.  Case closed.

I’ll tell ya.  I’m a sociologist by training and I’m taught that nothing is really “inherent” when it comes to behavior.  But this is such a GUY thing to do it makes me ill.  I don’t have women friends who don’t respond.  In fact, the opposite is usually true with them…when I’m pissed or they’re pissed we have to talk it out to the death.  But this whole, “I was busy so I couldn’t take 3 nanoseconds to just tell you that.”…I literally think its the presence of testicles that gives one courage to use that intensely ridiculous excuse.  This, I believe, probably forms the history of the phrase, “it takes balls to…”

The real coda to all of this is that said friend of course redeemed himself in a really shining fashion and I think in some ways that takes balls too…it’s a lesser ball achievement but a noteworthy one nonetheless.  And as I work back through the archive of all of the “friends are asses” posts, they usually end with redemption.  So, this is more a chronicle and less a complaint.

But friends really can be asses sometimes*. Whew.

*Of course, in the same breath I’d acknowledge that this particular friend could write a magnum opus called “When Katie’s are Asses.”  This may be the true firmament upon which our friendship is built.  We both have the potential to be incredible asses.

You know what makes me seethingly, nuttier-than-nuts, over the top annoyed?  When people break the communication chain leaving you hanging in a communication lurch, hands tied, and wondering.

I’ve noticed the communication chain to be very important to me, I think as a single person, moreso than 1) married people, 2) men, 3) introverts, 4)…okay, well, considering the number of people included in those groups, maybe I’m just crazy about the rules of communication.  But I find them fairly simple so I’m not sure why everyone just can’t get on board.  They are as follows:

1. When you initiate the communication, you (the initiator) cannot (cannot) for fear of being called a stalker contact the same person until they contact you back.

2. When you are the receiver of said communication*, you return it.

2b. When returning, it is proper to return via the mode the initial communique was delivered. (Thus, it is completely outside of the rules to return a phone call with an e-mail, etc.)

*This of course assumes the person contacting you is a friend or bound to you by a communication-based relationship (boss, brother, the dog groomer, etc.)

Those are the rules.  That’s all of them.  No overly-wrought communications lingo, addenda, or small print.  Of course, I realize that there are circumstantial situations that may preclude the rules and that’s fine; these are general and finite.

Unfortunately, I’m now left in the void of the disrupted chain of communication.  I blame myself.  I sent a vague, short e-mail to a friend fully expecting a response.  In all reality, it probably looked fairly innocuous and not meant for any kind of repechage (it’s a word…ask Susan, she knows)…but now my hands are tied…by my own damn rules of communication. Why?  No return.  Rule 2 was utterly tread all over.

Technically, I suppose since rule 2 was broken, all bets are off and I–as the victim, truly–could cite that in my trial for stalking a friend.  But we all know, per the labeling theory, what the title “stalker” can bring you in life…essentially, not good things.  No, I’ll just have to wait.  But that then brings up the weirdness that will come when I encounter said friend face-to-face; of course, I’ll want to ask why they never e-mailed me back…but I won’t…because in another set of communication rules, the non-returnal of calls, emails, disruptions of the chain of any species, cannot be inquired about directly for sure look of desperation.

The chain has been broken.  It wasn’t even a chain, really.  Just a simple two sentences with a question to finish it off.  Gone forever.  It’s the same dismay I feel when I know the opportunity to change potential energy into kinetic energy has passed. It’s a sad day for physics just like it’s a sad day for this lost communication.

Farewell, e-mail. Farewell.

I can’t say for sure but I think I was born without the gene that motivates me to get what I want.  I only say this because I’m consistently amazed with the ability of others to get what they want. Amazed.  Mystified even.

Take, for example, a woman I worked with about 10 years ago.  At that point she was 40ish (I think…oh man…), single, and, to be frank, really bossy bordering on obnoxious.  At that point in time she talked about getting married and having kids and people (including this people) rolled their eyes and couldn’t help but think, “Riiiiiight…okey doke.”  Well, who’s laughing now, friends?  It ain’t me.  This woman not only is married but adopted a child and now…she has the family she always talked about.  The one that everyone doubted.  She made it happen.  I’m amazed by that.

Probably one of the keys to this is identifying what you want but that’s part of my own mystification.  How do “people” know what they want?  On any given day I have no less than 3 ideas for career paths, life choices, and ways to keep things interesting.  All of them seem feasible.  All seem somewhat interesting at the very least.  And yet, I still cannot say with any resolve that I “want” particular things; I really feel like I don’t know what I want. And I’ve always felt this way.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.  The other day I was eating lunch with a friend and he asked whether I wanted to sit on the patio or inside.  ”Inside,” I said without hesitation and he starting laughing hysterically.

“Why are you laughing at me…is it my hair,” I wondered out loud.
“I’m just surprised.”
“Why…’cuz I want to sit inside…because we can sit outside if you want.”
“No,” he said. “I’m surprised you made a decision.”

Huh…story of my life.  Making decisions seems to be the key to honing in on what you want but I’m completely unthrilled by that idea.  How am I supposed to know what I should do?  I don’t know.  I envy the people who so clearly say things like, “I’ve always wanted to be a mother” or “the only thing I’ve ever been interested in is becoming a doctor.”  I can only say my experience has been the opposite; there are literally 2039874 things I want to be before I cash it in.  How in god’s name does one choose which direction to go?!? (I’m also a little frustrated because I surely thought this would work itself out in time…I figured when I got “older” I’d get more focused…ummmm…no.  Once again…the opposite.)

I’m ending this particular post because I know I want a snack before bed.

I just don’t know what it will be.

Sometimes friends who are asses do redeem themselves by going above and beyond the call of duty.

It’s important to remember that when wanting to just call them an “ass” and be done with them.  It’s all a dynamic process.