No Admittance

I don’t make friends easily. I am shy, and I hold myself back, aloof and scared - both that they won’t like me and that I won’t like them. I am too judgmental and I worry that everyone else is, too, that they look at me and see everything I know I am lacking. I’ve always been that way - reserved, held back. I’ll joke with you and talk and tell stories and listen to your stories, but I won’t really give myself to the conversation, and I won’t be able to make an effort later unless you push yourself at me - in which case I will get scared and move further away.

I haven’t had a best friend since high school, and I haven’t had any friends at all since before my son was born almost 6 years ago. In college, I had girlfriends, but no one close, no one I felt totally comfortable with, no one who bothered to contact me or who I bothered to contact when I abruptly left and went home with my tail between my legs. No one who really mattered or to whom I really mattered.

I wish that I could stop being this way, that I could open up and let people in, that I could stop nitpicking and stop feeling picked at. Even with this blog - people start reading it a little bit, and I back away. I have all these excuses - I’m busy, work is busy, life is difficult - but, really, it’s fear. It’s backing away and not letting anyone in. All my confessions, my admittances, they’ve all scared me off and I want to take them all back, put a façade up, start over again and not let anyone in that far. So I’m admitting this, and I’m going to try to keep up with my writing again, try to let people in, try to let myself out a little. It’s lonely in here by myself.

My love is bigger than your love (SING IT!)

Stuff I am currently obsessed with:

Burt’s Bees Replenishing lip balm with Pomegranate Oil – it smells kind of like candy and makes your lips vaguely pinker and shiny and feels awesome. I like the minty stuff, too, but sometimes you just can’t deal with all that tingle, and this does nicely.

Curel’s Life Stages: first signs of aging body lotion – my elbows are soft. Seriously, I had elephant elbows previously, and now? They are smooth and baby-soft. This stuff is a miracle worker. And you can get samples! From the internet!! Who doesn’t love samples?

Books on CD – now I can read all the time instead of just most of the time. I’ve been so into them lately; I spend all day at work with headphones on letting someone read to me. It’s sort of cathartic. I’m thinking I might graduate to self-help books so I can Improve Myself while I work. That’s multi-tasking, baby!

National Poetry Month – Knopf will send you a poem every day, and some of them you will hate, and some you will be indifferent to, and sometimes you will love them with an unbridled poetic fire, but either way it makes you feel sort of literary and smart to get poems in your email every day. (some of those links are for last year’s poems, which I have saved in my email but can’t access online anymore, so they’re from different places and a little confusing, I think).

EDIT: This is over now. I wrote this post like 3 weeks ago and never put it up, so, yeah, April’s done. But you can sign up for next year!

The MGMT song “Time To Pretend” - we’re rocking all around the house to this every chance we get.

Spring. I am loving hanging my clothes out on the line and leaves on the trees and flowers and robins and sunshine and all that shit. Spring is awesome. Having a washer and a clothesline are also really, really awesome.

My parents’ adorable new puppy:

Doesn’t the cuteness just break your heart? He’s a sweetheart, too.

Quickie feel-good post

Damn.  Just, damn.  This post is so heartbreakingly good and it makes me feel all fuzzy and warm to read it.  I want to put it in my pocket and carry it around with me, to make me feel better when things are bad.

Spring Fever

I am bored and restless.  The warehouse bay doors are open and the air is pouring in, all fresh and springy and smelling like grass and dirt and sunshine, cool breezes and all things outdoorsy.  I wish I was out there, lying in the grass, soaking up all that sunshine and birdsong; not stuck at a desk typing away at a computer.  I take my headphones off and put them back on half a dozen times, trying to find something to listen to, but none of the audiobooks I find catch my interest, my MP3 player’s batteries are dead.  My feet are hot and itchy and I can’t focus, I keep mistyping words.  I feel like in elementary school, when it was hot in the late afternoon and the windows were open but no breeze was coming in, and you would stare out at the playing field, the grass dry and motionless, the sky dull blue and everything weighted down by early June, the sound of bees and lawnmowers buzzing faintly in through the window.  You would want to just lay down on your desk and fall asleep, but couldn’t, and so would prop your head up with your chin and stare and maybe doodle stars in the  margin of your notebook and hope not to get called on.  The teacher’s voice would be a drone, like the sound of the lawnmower or the bees, and time would go slowly, almost as slowly as if it stood still.  I feel that lethargic, that lazy and dull.

I’ve been feeling lethargic like that a lot lately - stuck and restless and unable to focus or be content.  I stopped exercising because I was lazy, and I was sick, and I was too tired; and the longer it went on, the worse it felt.  I finally went for a walk again yesterday and felt such a jolt of energy and goodwill all afternoon; and I have to keep reminding myself today how good that felt, how good it will feel to get out there and walk again today.  But, really, I just want to go drape myself across one of the patio chairs and read and be still and silent.  I feel like everything is on standstill, or sliding by so slowly that it’s not sliding by at all, but dripping in slow motion, like how when you turn the nearly-empty syrup bottle upside down and have to wait fifteen minutes for anything to come out.  The hours are like that, syrupy slow drips; and then I look back and wonder where all the days have gone. 

 There is such a sameness to life right now - get up, get dressed, work, come home, dinner, dishes, bed - and the rhythm isn’t so much comforting as stifling.  I want something more, I want to feel energized and ready to start my day, I want to look forward to the minutes stretched ahead of me.  I want my life to start, and I know it’s up to me to start it, but I don’t know where to begin.  All these changes I’ve made - the exercise, the keeping up with chores, going to school, etc. etc. - all of it isn’t changing anything, not anything real.  The fundamental base of my life is still exactly the same, and I’m just waiting for it to change - to finish school and find a new job that excites me, to lose enough weight that I can go buy clothes that make me squeal with excitement, to start living my life instead of existing inside of it like it’s a bubble and I’m just being carried along.

 God, that sounds so utterly pathetic and miserable, or like I’m depressed and close to ending it all or something; and it’s not that bad, really.  It just feels flat and dull and I want something more.  Maybe it’s spring fever?  Maybe the warm weather is bringing it out?  Maybe I just need a new hobby.  Or to blog more often instead of playing Spider Solitaire.

Dear Internet, How I Have Missed Thee!

Dear Internet,

I must confess that I am writing to you while not wearing any underthings. No one is here to care, and I’m sure you don’t mind, but I just wanted to clear the air here. What you also can’t see is that I am in my pajamas post 3-day shower hiatus cleansing shower. (I realize this sentence is awkward and may not make sense and I’m sorry, but I am slightly giddy with pajama-clad freedom)  Why get dressed if you don’t have to? That’s a philosophy I’ve subscribed to since I was young and weekends involved no jeans until at least 5 p.m. when it was house-leaving time. Being a night shift employee only accentuates those tendencies, and I used to spend whole weekdays in my pajamas playing rule-edited Monopoly with a toddler. Now that getting dressed is a necessity 7 days out of 7, today feels wildly decadent.

Internet, I must also confess that I have missed you with a raging passion. Only I didn’t realize it, because I have been too busy to step back and realize how lonely I was without you. I spent this morning reading the blogs I haven’t had time to catch up on and commenting on many of them. Commenting! I used to obsessively comment and now I haven’t in weeks and weeks. My head was so full of unsaid unhilarious replies to posts that I couldn’t clickety-click out of there, and it was getting crowded. Now that I’ve freed up that space, I spent the hour after blog time watching TV. But not just one show- no, internet; unfettered TV time can’t be wasted in that way! I watched the beginning of a cheesy horror movie whose title escapes me - the one with the girl my cousin once christened Lightbulb Head when she was in Noxema commercials starring in it - and then part of the Royal Tenenbaums, which I now realize I have to watch again soon; and then slices of several home decor/remodeling shows and some Ina Garten pasta recipe and a commercial with a cute dog rolling over.

How does anyone get anything done with both TV and internet at their disposal? I have 6 chapters of textbook and a short essay to write before tomorrow, and I have cracked the book and set out my highlighters and pulled out a notebook and a pen and moved no further. So now I need to go do that and stop linking to silly shit and posting silly shit (though did I mention the missing of you, internet? You are dear to me and I am so happy to see you again!)

Love,
Melanie

jobs I’d like to have when I grow up

(I’ve been thinking of list after list since reading over at Mighty Girl about her things to do before she dies/things to remember when she dies.)

 

1. Author.  I’d love to curl up at my laptop all day, drinking endless cups of coffee, pounding out a cheesy romance novel with some hulking, shirtless guy on the cover.  He would be the Duke of Something and be all manly and macho and slightly forceful with the feisty heroine, who is unsexy until Duke Something comes along and uncovers her hotness. 
2. Editor.  Because I love correcting grammar and punctuation and spelling and sentence flow and all that (how’s that for sentence flow, BTW?)  And nothing ruins a good book like bad grammar or a change in tense.  I really think editing is half the novel in some cases.  Also, reading for a job sounds lovely.
3. Shopkeeper.  I want to own my own tiny gift-type shop, the kind that you walk in and exclaim at all the weird and lovely things that you would love to gift to everyone you know.  I would have strange old-fashioned tin toys, and antique little gee-gaws and unusual bejeweled items and lovely paper and maybe some fancy soaps in gifty boxes.  I would play ethnic music all day and be friends with the coffee shop or bookstore owner next door and we would hang out and drink macchiatos all day at one shop or the other, and I would give fantastic Xmas gifts.
4. Barista.  Because I heart Starbucks passionately and want to learn how to make macchiatos the Starbucks way.
5. Bartender/waitress – two jobs I’ve always thought it was weird that I never had.  Isn’t everyone a waitress at some point in high school or college?  And bartending appeals to me so much, maybe because I love the idea I have that low-cut tops equal more tips (and we know I love showing off my boobs) and I could also learn to  mix drinks, which is a good real-life skill to have.
6. Prenatal yoga teacher.  I really plan to do this one.  Once I have more time and disposable income, I’m going to become certified.  Then I’m going to start having free classes for low-income pregnant women, because they are so marginalized by society.  You go to WIC and they treat you like you’re one step from the crack pipe, or like because you are poor you are stupid.  I hated that about being a welfare momma.  I want to help those women do something that makes them feel good and whole within their bodies, that makes them realize how freaking worthwhile and amazing they really are.  Yoga helps you get in touch with your muscles and your bones and your mind all at once, and I think that I was so utterly lucky to have a mom who paid for me to take it while I was pregnant – I think it helped my pregnancy and birth experience so much and I want to share that with other people who don’t have anyone to buy it for them.  Yoga is becoming such a rich white-bread hobby, and it shouldn’t be – it should be something anyone can benefit from, even if they can’t shell out $150 a month to some fancy studio.
7. Librarian.  Hmmm, bookish theme, here, no?  But I’ve always wanted, from when I was little, to work in a library.  That would just be such a great culmination of a dream.  A bookstore would be good, too, but there is something about libraries that just amazes me.  We live in a world where the library is one of the few amazing free things left – where you can go get a book, a movie, a CD, a magazine, whatever, for free; and you can go listen to story time with your kid, get a museum pass, see somebody juggle or do magic tricks or talk about owls or show a movie about Kwanzaa; all of it free and right there and open to everyone in your community.  Libraries, to me, are fucking empowering.
8. Woman of leisure.  No, actually, I don’t know if I could really handle that.  I think that I would truly get bored unless I had a lot of leisure activities planned out for my day.  Sitting around doing nothing appeals for a few days, then I get tired of it and want to go out and DO something.  For someone as slacker as I am, I really do like to work and I have a work ethic.  Sort of.  I guess me writing this at work kind of makes that a hypocritical statement, though. 

ticker-tape parade in my honor

I have this constant need to be validated, to be cheered on and complimented in everything.  I wonder how much of that is normal human behavior - because who doesn’t like a pat on the back sometimes? - and how much my own neuroses and insecurity.  I want to be applauded for tiny things, like how well I do my job or how clean I mopped the floor or that nice parking job I did.  I want people to notice when my hair looks cute, even if it’s through no fault of my own, or when I’ve lost 12 pounds that can’t really be seen (even by me).  I want to be the life of the party all the time.  I wouldn’t say no to parades in my honor.  But the thing of it is, in my head, largely I swing from thinking that I’m actually pretty fucking cool to how hard I suck and why do I even bother. 

 For so many years I was all “oh, I skipped a grade, la-di-da” and that impressed people.  But now I’m realizing that skipping kindergarten doesn’t really change that much once you’re 28.  If I was so smart, I wouldn’t be working in a warehouse opening boxes and entering repair orders.  I wouldn’t be 28 and still struggling through my bachelor’s degree.  It’s like this sudden realization - what happened 23 years ago is no longer anything that matters.  Now I’m a grown-up and my high school graduation year isn’t something anyone cares about, it’s not something that brands me as different or that matters at all.  My SAT scores (which were admittedly mediocre) don’t matter, either.  More and more it seems like it’s really just about perseverance, about applying yourself…”Melanie is smart but does not apply herself” “Melanie is a joy to have in class but hasn’t done her homework in 6 months”  “Melanie would be great if she showed up on time sometimes”… no matter how smart you are, without trying harder and doing more, you’re not shit.  Now I’m just some semi-smart chick reading pink books in my free time, working in a warehouse.  I’m no longer something special, someone people are impressed by.   I’m just me.  How many times do I have to mull that idea over before I can accept that and move on?

Things about my new house

1. When we moved in, the weather went like this: rain, sun, rain, sleet, snow, heavy snow, rain, sun. All within a few hours.

2. The floor isn’t really wood, but it looks like wood, and it makes me feel unbelievably happy and cozy.  I grew up with wood floors.

3. The driveway is a muddy lake, but there is a big yard and I have great big garden plans rolling around in my head, unformed but ready to take root.

4. The internet connection is slow - it is wireless and the signal is bad.  But that’s no excuse for the not posting, especially when I had planned to do the March NaBloPoMo as a form of slow torture for myself.  Life just sort of has gotten in the way of words.  I have so much I want to say and tell you and all of it is such a jumble in my head.

In which I link to myself, madly

I did a new yoga DVD last night, and this morning I feel like someone is thwacking me in the legs and ass with sharp rocks wrapped in plastic - painful in a dull ache sort of way.  I know that means good things for the legs and ass (building and stretching muscle, etc.), but I wish the whole thing could be slightly less uncomfortable.  Going to bed last night I decided that yoga is like drinking - it’s kind of fun while you’re doing it, right afterward you feel really great, and then the next morning you feel sort of ass and the only way to feel less ass is the hair of the dog that bit you (more drinking or more yoga).  Apparently it’s an addictive, nasty cycle.  Speaking of yoga, if you’ve never read YogaBeans?  Please go do so, especially if you’ve ever done yoga yourself.  My favorite is the pirate one, probably because we have that same pirate and squid set at my house.  Also, she espouses the theory (over at her regular everyday blog) that yoga is, perhaps, addictive and can ruin your life, so I’m in good company on the yoga/booze comparison.

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My thoughts are totally scattered lately, which is part of why I haven’t been posting much - I keep feeling like I need to put together a whole essay and all I have are miscellaneous paragraphs that don’t mesh together.  But if your thoughts don’t mesh together, if everything’s disjointed and weird in your head, then why shouldn’t what you write follow suit?  I guess if I just sit here and wait for things to gel into something long and lovely and poignant, I’ll sit here forever.

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My job description will be changing next week, and I’m not really happy about it but don’t have much of a choice.  It was pretty much “do this or go away”, though said much more nicely with smiling and high fives and stuff.  It’s something I thought had been staved off last time, when I said “no, no, no” and was given until December to see if I was still deemed “necessary”.  My boss had originally told me not to worry, I was totally necessary - and now it appears that I am necessary, but only if I will follow orders and be moved to the Siberia of the warehouse receiving area.  Heil!

It’s funny, I think I’m one of the only people in the world who dreams of working in a cubicle, chained to a desk and a computer, and I just can’t seem to catch a break.  The first couple years I was here, I shared a desk and had to keep a sort of low profile (my pictures kept getting stuffed behind the monitor by my stupid “cubiclemate”).  Now, finally, I have my own freaking cubicle, and I have all my shit hung up and I can anally file everything in my weird compulsive way, and now I have to move to an open-plan shared sort of desk again.  It sucks.  Right now I am feeling so disillusioned with my job and I’ve spent the past three afternoons dicking off and playing Spider Solitaire because I can’t bring myself to bust ass quite so hard anymore.  I am pissed and being childish about it.  I have such a fucking sense of entitlement, like I should be treated all princessy, and I hate that about myself, and yet I can’t seem to stop feeling all “well, I do all the fucking WORK around here, even if I do goof off a lot, why can’t they just sort of WORSHIP me and give me all sorts of fancy days off or something?  Or at least let me keep my fucking cubicle and not be threatened with joblessness?”

Oh, oh, oh, also!  To add to the joy!  We are being evicted!!!  Because life is always awesome, and then it just gets awesomer.  You can read about the whole stupid neighbors-noise complaint thing here.  Yesterday, we got the “Notice to Quit” and now we have til the end of the month to find a new place.  And with rent being so freaking high and E being out of work, this is just peachy, you know?  He’s been scrabbling to call apartments and make appointments all day, and we’re crossing our fingers.  It sucks because the nicest one he found means W would have to change schools, from the nice brand-new school they just built to an old, slightly skanky one with a not-great reputation (according to one mom from his preschool).  So who knows, maybe we’ll get a cute house and be able to get a dog and have to change schools, so it’ll even out.  Or maybe we’ll get a not-as-nice place and stay in the school system.  Or maybe I’ll go hide my head in a vat of chocolate pudding and not come up for a few years until life gets less stressful.

In which I get mushy

Sometimes there are those things that you can’t let go of.  Past events, things you did, things someone said, moments in time that you wish had never happened or that had gone differently.  Things you know that you should let go of, that you need to drop, that it’s time to move on from.   Learn from your mistakes and then push forward.  And yet you can’t, you keep dwelling on them, you think they’re gone and that you’ve healed, that they don’t bother you anymore and then something happens and you realize that not much has really changed.  My professor at school looks so much like someone I used to know, someone I don’t really want to dwell on, and every time I look at him I feel… weird.  There’s not any other way to describe it, it’s just this edgy, intangible weirdness, and I end up back in my dorm room, back in college, back in these moments that I wish had gone differently, that I wish hadn’t occurred - really, that I wish I could just move on from.  I keep reminding myself that past events shape who we are, that I think I am pretty fucking cool now in so many ways, that I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t done things I did then, that they don’t matter in the grand scheme of my life.  And it’s not like I’m oh-woe-is-meing, I’m not feeling sorry for myself or getting all depressed, I’m just finding myself thinking  about this stuff and it won’t go out of my head.  Maybe I’m just re-working through it, fixing the stuff I didn’t end up fixing in therapy before?  Maybe it’s just a phase my brain needs to go through?  Maybe I just need to finish this class and not have that gentle poking finger of “who does that face remind you of?”…

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My son stopped calling me “Mommy” recently.  I noticed it over the past few weeks, that slowly I have morphed into “Mom”, so gradually that I don’t think anyone noticed the change until it had already happened.  I’m surprisingly okay with it, considering how freaked out I can get about so much of him growing up.  I’m Mom now, I can deal with that.  I actually kind of like it, sort of.  Especially because I still get snuggles and kisses and all that “Mommy” type stuff that he hasn’t outgrown.

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E told me he loved me again yesterday.  I’ve been feeling that vibe from him lately but not pushing it, letting him come to the conclusion at his own pace, and finally he said it.  I feel so utterly relieved and yet so unsurprised, because it’s been a while coming to the words - weeks of him leaning over to hug me, snuggling up together on the couch, kind words exchanged.  It still feels so tender and new, though, like when you are first in a relationship and everything is fragile, the balance is so precarious from that first startling revelation that you love each other, that you are opening yourselves up to each other.  I didn’t think that you got that twice in one relationship, and it’s both lovely and frightening to realize that this is a feeling that can happen more than once with the same person.