The Need for Sarcasm

I feel wrung out.  This has been too crowded a week and it's only Wednesday.  I am pretty good at coping, but this week I wanted to throw in that towel so many times and just say, "Fuck it."  And lots of the stuff I had to deal with turned out really well.  Well, there was that one customer service wait with the staticky Muzak.  But I think the thing that is missing is the bouts of laughter that bring tears to my eyes.  Apparently the tears have to go out anyway, (damn that Amygdala) so they were brought on by trips through the bank drive up instead of the strange and funny things that usually happen that we make stranger and funnier. 

My daughter has a friend staying with her, and I guess that is making me a little lonely.  But it would sure be nice if there was someone else in my life that I could converse with until we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. But the subject of friendship has been permanently shelved as far as I am concerned.  And the books I am reading are kind of formulaic, predictable, and dark.  My choices.  Not good ones.  Then last night I am proofing and editing the "Big Deal" and the sad parts were making cry, again, and the technical  mistakes I was finding were way too common.  I couldn't believe it after all this time.  And then one of those stupid dotted lines showed up. That just about drove me off the edge.  At least nothing turned red.  The sooner I launch that boat, the better.  If it sinks, oh well, I tried.  And tried.  And tried. 

I know all these feelings are aspects of my personality that I have had to deal with all my life, and part of it is my choices and part of it, as an actual physician said to me very recently, is my "neuro-biology".  I wonder if it could be  the weather that is making it all so much harder to deal with.  I am so used to being the way I am that I actually like me and prefer being this way.  I think the "devil may care" attitude toward life has to be an elaborate costume drama for anyone trying to live it.  No.  I KNOW that.  It just gets to me every now and then and I can be in the line in WalMart and feeling a little creeped out  cuz everyone looks ugly and scary and I can be in the line in WalMart and chatting with strangers and smiling at babies that smiled at me first.  And I know it is me.  Not the people in the line at WalMart.   For God's sake.  For one who feels and enjoys being as insular as I am, man, I sure let the outside world get to me way too much.

I am incapable of any sarcastic rejoinders, my stock in trade, my stress release mechanism of choice. Oh, well.  It will come back to me.  It always does.  Right? 

Friendship

My younger daughter has many friends.  My older daughter has friends that have been her friends for many, many years.  My younger daughter had a break with a friend that was very serious.  The person felt betrayed and came back and said, "Well, I am still mad about it, but I have to put it behind me cuz I still want to be your friend."  I would say she and her friends love each other.  I wonder where they learned to have friends and be a friend.  Not from me.

I had a friend for many years.  One.  I have many casual acquaintances and waaaay too many relatives, and I am the kind of person that ends up giving the person in line at KMart a hug when we finally say good bye after our eleven minute life changing conversation.  I am also the kind of person that the Mexican handy man on the estate where I worked offered to marry one day when I was complaining about my spouse.  And I have always been able to make friends with people that I work with.  They have attempted to keep those friendships, and "friendships" going when we no longer worked together and seeing one another became less convenient.  But it was always me that dropped the ball, or let the air out of it. 

The one friendship that persisted did so not because of my efforts.  I am phone phobic and I love to read, and would never  bother to call someone just to catch up or make a date.  I just don't want to.  Part of it is time related, part of it, the biggest part of it, is definitely psychological.  But the friend persisted in keeping in touch.  Now we have parted.  She has denied saying things that I have in print (electronically) and she has accused my husband and me of doing things we did not do.  (Also backed up with the printed words she twisted) She claimed that some years back she decided to steer away from certain topics cuz she thought I was going a little wacko.  Well, shit fire.  Everyone knows I am a little wacko.  And the stuff that I have heard from her over the years indicating she is not going a little wacko but has crossed the line into the land of the strangely unbalanced, well, why even bother?   Today I received a letter from her that is so far beyond the pale (whatever the fuck that means) that my mind is spinning and burning and I am venting on this blog to keep myself from taking her letter and annotating each and every bizarre accusation she makes.   I am asking myself, and everyone around me, and they are getting damn sick of it, why did I ever bother?  What did I ever get out of it?  I would get so nervous about meeting her for lunch, I would have to take a Lunesta (maybe two) the night before or else I would toss and turn in a frenzy of anxiety.

I have rewritten my life in fictional works, three or four times.  I cannot actually rewrite my life, and when I consider the bad things that happened, the terrible tragedies that I wish I did not have to live through, the difficulties and mental obstacles and horrible decisions I have had to make, honestly, I look back and think that is just the way it was.  That is why I am here now and things are this way.  And I honestly don't think I would change it.  Well, maybe I would have married that med student, but I think he had a drinking problem.

But this friendship thing?  I twice have moved from towns and left no forwarding address because I did not want some one who wanted to be my fucking friend ( and I don't literally mean fucking. That's a whole other issue. And a way easier one to deal with.) to find me.  And, honest to God, one of them tracked me down.  What is wrong with me, except that my DNA proves my ancestors are from another galaxy, that makes me think friendship is such a HUGE pain in the ass?  I invite your input.  You may feel free to post anonymously and thereby relieve me from having to do anything, besides accepting gratefully,  that might be construed as friendly. But I am courteous, trustworthy, appreciative, kind, generous, unselfish, highly accountable, extremely responsible, fun, witty, (acerbically), literate, intelligent, attractive in an aging sort of way, just unfuckingfriendly. And that wacko thing.

FLUFF

For anyone wandering in here that doesn't know ME, that might have linked through that Real Estate Agent in New Zealand or that Bicylce Shop in Holland, or that strange Russian website that loves me--I write FLUFF.

I am tired of the strict definition of "Romance" that it must have "conflict" and the "Happy Ending" which is so standardized it is called the HEA.  Happy Ever After. 

I write FLUFF.  They fall in love, fall in  bed, fight about stupid things, have babies, have tragedies, have fun, get scared, care about stuff.  There is no category.  I have even, thinking perhaps facetiously, or "kidding on the square", sent out queries where I say this is FLUFF with no moral lessons, hidden truths, just entertainment.  You'll laugh.  You'll cry.  You'll pee a little.  WTF.  I NEED escapism, but I cannot get my mind around stuff that has no bearing at all on my life.  I have to be able to identify with these people otherwise I do not give a flying fuck about them.  I remember all the cute, funny, flattering, scary, sad, emotional, angry parts of my life.  I don't necessarily want flashbacks, but maybe a little revisionist history, just for fun.  I swear, I read about a person whose friend has a book on the store shelf and asks her what she thinks of it and she says now they don't speak cuz it was a bunch of disconnected scenarios and she couldn't think of anything good to say about it.  Well, don't get your expectations up here.  If you ever talked to me or listened to me, or heard about me, you know exactly what to expect, and if you never heard of me, you will know me as well as you know your sister or your wife or your husband or yourself when you read me.

Coming soon to a Kindle  near you.  Lots and lots of bang for your buck.

Brag, Brag, Brag

It's usually whine, whine, whine, but maybe it's the weather.  This morning I went out in front of my house and cut branches off a tree.  I enjoyed it a lot.  I will probably feel the results of it tomorrow, but I enjoyed it.  I used to get mad at Louie.  We'd be having people over for whatever and I'd be dusting bookcases and he'd go to the empty field next door and cut down branches, pruning artistically, trees that belonged to no one and were growing wild.  But now I understand.  It is messing around with a kind of huge natural force and it feels so good.  I had one limb that was about four inches thick and half way through it broke and I couldn't get a purchase on the little piece still holding it on the tree.  Elemental problem solved.  Feels so much better than worrying if this chapter break should be a three asterisk break or a four asterisk break. Then, apparently while I was out for lunch, which took six hours and was also fun, Louie did some more.  Well, he always did like it.  And maybe after the spinal surgery he won't be able to do it anymore.  So the stacks of branches in front of and behind the garage kinda look actually bigger than the tree.  This tree, I think it is some kind of ash, and it is not very attractive, but keeps the evening sun from raising the temp in the front bedrooms, so there is no question it must remain, is just kind of annoying, it's growth pattern and ugly bark and all, and while wrestling with it I had the passing thought:  Ash. Emerald Ash Borer.  Maybe the village would pay for its removal, but no.  I took it back, God.  Forget I said that.  It is very necessary to the cultural ambience of my actual residence.  Which brings me back to what started this train of thought that is now looping through abandoned mine tunnels in an unused portion of my brain.  It had to be trimmed because it was growing way over the driveway and Cassie and I park our cars at that end of the driveway and on that side, and there is always an embarrassing amount of bird shit on them.   Plus, when I come around the corner, and I've lived here almost twelve years, I always think, "My house looks so nice."  And lately when I come around the corner I think, "You can hardly see the house anymore for that damned tree."
So, practical and aesthetic reasons, and it was fun and when you come around the corner you will think, "That house looks really nice."  It does.