International Sex Symbol

I began this post last night as titled "That One Time In Milan," and it commenced:

 

"No, I'm not talking about that time I almost got pregnant and fled the country post haste, or how I didn't pay metro fare for an entire weekend in Vienna. Not that either of those ever happened. Or maybe. WHICH ONE IS IT."

 

...and then I realized that the story I had intended to tell about the one day I got a head- and foot-ache walking around town and went home to avail it with a nice hot bath and other modicum of relaxation techniques that did not work, only to sit down and draw and become magically cured, thus proving my philosophy on bodily cues, is waaaaay less interesting and scintillating and potentially heartbreakingly inappropriate for certain member of my family that may be reading, than the time that I actually did almost get pregnant in Milan and flee the country mere days later. Plus I have something equally scintillating and potentially heartbreaking to make the point I was previously discussing. It will have to wait for our less pressing conversations.

 

I took myself to Europe three years ago to gain the kind of culture an early-twenties, midwestern Suburbianite can only fantasize about in dreams of international fame and artsy boys with Italian accents. I was staying in the foothills of the Alps on the Italian side, just outside of Milan. I ate a lot. I slept a lot. I traveled to Paris for a week and Vienna for a weekend to fall in love with my idols all over again. I also didn't talk much, seeing as Europeans can be just as big of assholes as we Americans are to our Southern continental neighbors.

 

(On a side note, I did meet that artsy guy with the Italian accent. Well, not so much an accent per se, as an entire language. One whose comprehension of English went so far as "forest." No I mean it, that was the only English word he knew. I learned a lot of Italian from him. Also later that he had a girlfriend and was "Jesus' age when he died," as he put it. It didn't end well.)

 

A friend of mine and I met in Paris to explore the city for the week. Upon our departing day I had the chance to meet one of his bunkmates at the hostel where we last stayed. He was a pipsqueek of a kid with ambition and too big a fancy for Jack Kerouac. I employ the word "fancy" because he was also British.

 

The three of us, traveling the Metro at the same time soon discover that LO AND BEHOLD, FancyPants and I are both headed to Milan. Me for my return and he to get all "On The Road" with some literary reference to the city that only a pretentious 19-year old can conjure (ok, YES, I went to Vienna to walk the same glorious streets that Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele once trod and tattoo their philosophy on my arm. I know what you're thinking. IT'S NOT THE SAME).

 

I told him the lake I was staying on was pretty shnazzy. He made some literary "aha!" over the lake. I told him to come hang out. A few days later, we were eating pizza and drinking a liter of wine. Ok, maybe two liters. Ok, maybe two liters, a gin and tonic, and a bar-bought bottle of wine from the B&B where he was staying, just for safe measure. There was a couple asking us to breakfast the next morning, ok? We had to keep talking and drinking! It's the Italian way!

 

So, anyways, I suppose by now you can see where this is going. By the next morning I was slightly less drunk and increasingly more concerned of what the gentle village folk might think of a trollop like me staggering home at 7 o'clock in the morning. But I had to get out of there. Ladies, you know why I had to get out of there.

 

By far and away, this is the stupidest thing I will ever admit to having taken part. I do not recommend this brand of behavior to anyone. Maybe in Florida on Spring Break or something. NOT in a foreign country, contact-less, and without proper understanding of the native tongue. Just, don't do it, promise?

 

Several fevered google-searches, an eternally long Easter weekend (do you know that fucking everything is closed in Italy on Easter weekend? Including Monday? That means no Walgreens, ladies. Talk about Jesus freaks) and one pitiful head-shake from a Farmacia tech later, I found myself in a south-bound spiral of OHMYGODHOLYSHIT-ness.

 



I did return fairly shortly after this incident. I'd like to say it was not altogether out of shame or sheer terror, but it largely was. That and the fact that I was out of money. Like, two weeks prior out of money. So to my flight attendant friend did I run and Chicago via JFK did I land. It was a great trip; a more enlightening and soul-stirring trip than any I could have conjured in my artsy-boy dreams. But to this end it did, well, end.

 

I don't tell you this story to regale you with my bad-assitude or to inspire pity or, possibly, revulsion. I tell it because even today, some three years and far worse heartbreaks later, it is one of the greatest lessons I have yet to let sink into my life-hardened skull.

 

I'm not talking about the blatantly obvious "don't-do-stupid-shit-you-stupid-shit" lesson. Because we'll all do stupid shit sometimes. We'll all hook up with underage strangers in our slutty years because they tell us we're pretty. We'll all get ourselves into situations we'd tell our Grandchildren not to get into. But what I learned in the short week and a half I spent in Nebbiuno following this great lapse in judgement, is the value of acceptance.

 

Acceptance for me, at that time, meant acknowledging that I was in a potentially horrifying situation. Acceptance for me meant that while said situation could pan out in several different ways at some abstract point in the future, there was literally nothing I could do at that particular moment about it. All I could do was enjoy the beautiful country surrounding me, soak in as much as I could in my remaining time, and hope for the end most in line with my life's path.

 

BUT. This is my life's greatest lesson thus far because, as I've mentioned so subtlely before, I tend toward the anxious temperament. It is very easy for me to run through the "what if's" over and over again until the hamster in my skull's wheel dies of dehydration. But in that moment, with nothing else on my side except my own self-awareness, I chose to accept and move on. And you know what? Things turned out pretty dandy. Even if it took me a while to get rid of my pizza cheeks.

 

 

 

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Vice Grips

Sometimes I have to force myself to sit down and write. Sometimes I have to physically put a timer on to make sure I don't leave the studio before it jolts me out of drooling at the easel. Sometimes the creative pursuits -- like almost anything else -- are what fuel us to keep going but can become as hard to pull out as a wedgie (especially if I'm wearing boy shorts. Girls with big butts don't wear boy shorts). Sometimes I have to go on menial errands like meandering around Target and buy everything but the tweezers I went there for, just to let some of the information trickle in and begin arranging itself before I'm ready to set it to type. Today was one of those days.

 

This post was especially hard to write because it goes way down into my vault of security, down past the guard dogs and fangs dripping with blood, screeching to a halt into one of my greatest insecurities and deepest shames. It's something so many women (and men, not to be exclusive) deal with but none of us want to talk about. At least not in the real sense, anyway. Forget about Dr. Oz and Raspberry Ketones. This is my story of Food:

 

Look, Here's The Thing:

 

I've been catching myself in the kitchen lately. I'll pull random things out of the fridge and stand at the counter eating. Not because I'm boredom eating -- which has very often been the case in years past -- but because somehow I'll find myself starving at the end of the day and the process of biting, chewing and swallowing just seems so boring that I might as well do it standing up; so that I may get it done as quickly as possible. Somehow, I'm forgetting throughout the day to feed myself. Somehow, I'm forgetting one of the most basic functions of human being. Somehow, I'm losing interest.

 

I noticed this initially when I became a human tension wire over my relationship issues and all thoughts of food made me want to vomit the nothing already in my stomach. Everything tasted like dirty socks (or maybe those boy shorts). Somehow chips and french onion dip became dinner -- to be served in high doses after midnight. I would have drip-fed myself coffee as a filler if I could. The only reason I find this so interesting "now" is because of how different it is from "before."

 

It's no secret to those that know me that I've always been curvy. I've always had an ass for days, cheeks a chipmunk would scratch its eyes out for and HELLO, thighs. For fuck's sake, I didn't even start looking in the mirror and seeing someone moderately attractive until I was like 19. And for a long time my weight fluctuated because eating was not something I did for nourishment, it was what I did to nourish the empty spaces. Give me something to worry about and you give me flapper arms. Hand me an empty afternoon and Thou Hast Bestowed Mine Winter Weight. The great tragedy is that none of the extra ever spread to my boobs.

 

I turned a 180 after high school, when I joined the ranks of women starving themselves on low-calorie ice cream and boca burgers on Weight Watchers. I lost a bunch of weight and felt like super woman. The problem? I was still as obsessed with food as I had been before I began. It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle in my head; from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed I was fitting together the food pieces and trying to create a picture of my day with as much as I could squeeze into it. Watching the Food Network late at night doesn't help either; though I think it would make Jim Gaffigan proud. I felt better about myself, but that was only when I could even think about anything other than what I as putting into myself (yes, I caught that...get your head out of the gutter).

 

After 9 months of insanity I came to a halfhearted conclusion that two opposites don't make a middle ground. And that some other avenue probably needed to be ventured, seeing as every time I'd go home from school I'd "take a break" from dieting and eat entire batches of cupcakes. I'm pretty sure you can black out from sugar, now.

 

Then I was bequeathed the gift of Geneen Roth. This woman is a genius of food obsession. Dude has dieted and binged enough to have gained and lost over 200 pounds in her lifetime, a fact she touts proudly in her profound recovery. From the insight of her finally reaching sanity, she has a magical way of taking you out of the compulsion and instilling the concept of food as health, rather than harm. All in a way that makes you laugh at the gallon of ice cream you just ate while simultaneously asking yourself, "who in there actually wants to eat a gallon of ice cream at a time?" Because when it comes down to it, if you really do love yourself, why would you want to eat a gallon of ice cream? When you sit down and truly feel how that feels in your body, what molecule in your stomach enjoys being drowned in frozen dairy?

 

After that I began paying attention to my body. I began listening to how it felt after each meal, and whether or not I was feeding it when I was hungry or just bored. My weight fluctuated a little bit and I spent brief moments panicking about it. I certainly considered going back on Weight Watchers after I split my pants at work one day and Lori laughed her own ass off, but I eventually convinced myself they were just really tight (they really are -- I still wear them now that they've loosened up a bit in the crotch, though).

 

Somehow I've strayed back to the starvation end of my spectrum, but this time it's not entirely on purpose. I'm trying to inch my way back to center, one cookie at a time. I made Laura, Katie and I chili last night and now that I am the master of my own kitchen again, I expect that to be a regular occurrence. Not to mention that I make damn good chili. Plus, I think I'm nearing my Deli Chicken Salad capacity. Maybe I'm nearing capacity for this particular vice of mine, too. Cheers to you, and your good health.

 

 

 

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Patience Is A FuckYou

 

This phrase litters my notebooks and journals. I'd hazard to guess it begins about half of those pages and can be found scattered in margins, in blocks in the middle, and as concluding sentences. I began writing it to myself when I was in Europe a few years ago. I think it was on the first day, when I missed the second of four modes of transportation I needed to reach my final destination -- in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, so getting to and fro is a hazardous experience -- and spent four hours at a coffee shop where no one spoke English and the toilet was a hole in the ground. The reason I even missed that train in the first place was because a) the ancient Italian guy who sold me my ticket didn't understand a word I was saying and b) because I had no idea how to navigate the platforms both marked and spoken on the loudspeakers in Italian (I got an Italian phrasebook and cd months before I left but didn't touch either until the plane departed New York for Milan. I didn't retain much over the screaming baby). Not to mention the fact that while they are marked and I eventually learned how to read which arrived where, the trains tended to change tracks at the last minute with the only indication being the previously mention loudspeaker announcement, unfortunately in rapid Italian. I missed a lot of trains that spring. I also peed on my legs a lot.

 

The thing about being in a foreign country, alone, with little to no understanding of how it operates or its proffered language is that when you get yourself in a bind, there's literally nothing you can do about it. You have to wait in a coffee shop, ignore your bowels because you can't figure out how to navigate the toilet situation and are simultaneously afraid of leaving your luggage unattended for more than 30 seconds and sit until you've developed a new plan. You have to risk making an ass of yourself running for a bus in a dress with a giant backpack and suitcase rolling after you, sometimes while frantically taking puffs on a cigarette or shoving a brioche down your gullet. But then again, I've never been good at simplifying a process.

 

Those two months were a strange cocktail of the slowest, most boring days I've ever experienced and the greatest, dizzying adrenaline rushes of my life. I tended to sleep an average of ten hours a night in the foothills, but then spent a week on less than 5 in Paris. The common denominator was that I never knew what would happen next. I got lost every single time I went to Milan, and once spectacularly in Turin -- YOU try going to a city that doesn't operate on a grid and tell me how you fair. Google maps, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Several times I would stop people on the train, point to or mime their cell phone, pull out the one contact phone number I had and somehow ask them to dial for me while I concocted a plan for if there was no answer, and pray to God she would -- because I really never created a new plan anyways.

 

In all of the confusion and uncertainty that I experienced in my time there, I learned two things that I will never forget:

 

1) That I am capable of a hell of a lot more than I ever thought possible, given situations that I could never have anticipated and the sheer need to just make it work, SOMEHOW, and;

2) Sometimes there is literally nothing you can do. Sometimes your only recourse is to just sit, feed the barista espresso money, doodle aimlessly, and be fucking patient.

Now, the first one I'm ok with. The first one I love -- that I found strength in myself when everything looked like it was hellbent against me. That one is bitchin. The second one? FUCK YOU, PATIENCE! You don't even have to ask The Mother and she'll tell you that my greatest fault is my lack of patience. She'll also probably tack on the story about how when I was three years old I hounded her for a month to take me to the Ice House Mall to get my ears pierced. And then how when she did, I screamed bloody murder and let them close up days later. I was a fun kid.

 

This phrase has been creeping back up on me lately, though. I've been wound so tight over everything I can't control and feel like I'm drowning in, that I've forgotten what I learned while I was getting fat on pizza and gelato. That was a brief and poignant moment in my life that I truly learned and understood the value of patience -- not because it's a virtue or other such phraseology -- but because literally, sometimes there is absolutely nothing you can do but sit down, watch things unfold and wait for the right moment to jump back in. To push anything just pushes it past where it's supposed to go at that point, and you're probably going to break it (just ask my stomach circa The Pizza Era). There is a fine line between laziness and patience, and I know that I am indefinitely skewed towards the latter. It's my tendency.

 

And right now there is a lot I'm uncertain of. I'm having a hard time getting grounded in much and I'm beginning to push both myself and others around because of it. I've lost sight of what at one time I had gotten really good at. Which is why I'm trying to let that nugget of past learning work its way back into my life.

Breathe. Inhale. Exhale.

 

 

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I'm Coming Out or; (Channeling D.F.W.)

I'm coming out. No, not like that, guys. I still like me a nice side of man m--wait, no, I can't finish that sentence. My grandmother might be reading, and I need to maintain my perfect first-born status within the family. For the record, I NEVER have anything to do with man-ANYTHING. EVER.



No, I'm not coming out of the closet to answer all the chicks that have been hitting on me lately (if that were true, can you imagine the self confidence I'd be floating on right now?). But I bet you're all wondering what spurred my uncharacteristic, sappy and altogether BORING (come on admit it, I know everything you're thinking before you've even thought it) post yesterday. Truth is, I had my first ever verbal (I reiterate: what the hell do you say when it's a written-verbal; as in, via-the-interwebs-but-it's-like-I'm-talking, verbal? Someone educate me. Or make up a word) fistfight on facebook yesterday. And not just any old fisticuffs, no -- it was with a family member. Pause for your stunned silence.



(Can one have enough parenthesized sentences in a single paragraph? David Foster Wallace, come save me.)



This is how it went down: so I'm perusing the interwebs late Tuesday night -- early Thursday morning depending upon your affinity for cocaine -- and I come across something that gets my granny panties all in a twist. Something that I just find personally offensive, internationally prejudiced, and globally trivial. This facebook missile just happened to belong to a family member. And the longer I stared at it, the less I could convince my self of its overall unimportance to my well-being. I knew I should just look away and take my dignity with me, as if "taking the high road" ever helped anybody expel a little sexual frustration-based rage (sorry, Grandma). To wit: it really pissed me the fuck off.



So -- in the most tactful manner I could summon and using my largest big-girl words so as to appear "intelligent" -- I drafted a response. That then turned into two responses. And then three. And then I went to bed feeling a little less frustrated and a whole lot more SUCK IT.



But here's the thing, and the reason for my coming out party: I have never spoken any sort of self-truth to this side of my family. I've always been pretty mum about who I am as a person, aside from the shallow surface that I bring to Thanksgiving dinner. I keep the peace by avoiding controversial topics, my opinions regarding my belief system, or anything that even skims the surface of "who I really am." Maybe that's the reason I haven't been around to watch anybody fry a turkey, lately.



I have always known there was a rift between us -- as soon as I developed enough brain cells to form my own thoughts and ideas, I could feel the strain between "me" and "them" pulling more taught. I don't think it's a malicious thing, it's just that we're different. We all know that I'm different and that we don't really understand each other, though no one cares to say it out loud. And this is why I'm choosing to jump out of the closet. I MADE YOU A PAINTING. IT'S SEXUAL AND VIOLENT (please, someone call the reference so I don't look like a total whackadoo).



The first part of acceptance in any relationship is accepting yourself, first. It has taken me a long time to accept who I am. The second part is sharing it and coming to peace with the fact that even if the receiving party does not reciprocate the love you have for yourself, that's ok. Even if they don't agree or want any part in it, that acceptance you have of yourself is all that matters. You can still be cordial. You can still interact. You can understand that you are different but still spun from the sheep's wool. And you can move on.



Just like it has taken me a long time to come to terms with myself, it has taken me even longer to bring that out into the world. And for some reason, families make this trek even slipperier. That need to be accepted by your family will always be there (there's that tribe thing again). But the more I can learn to love myself, the less it matters in the long run.



I look forward to sharing more of myself to them. At least now when we feel the discomfort, we will know where it comes from. Maybe we can talk about it. And maybe -- just maybe -- someday it'll make things a little bit more interesting. One can only hope, right?

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El Fin.

Look, Here's The Thing:

I FOUND A DOLLAR TODAY.

Not quite the million I'd be skipping town with, but it DID give me exact change with which to purchase this delicious soup I am currently noshing on. Life just has that funny way of giving you exactly what you need -- though I'd prefer to find a deluxe yacht cruise vacation voucher for the next oh, never-coming-back amount of time, waiting on my doorstep.

Also what I need right now is like ten solid hours in a movie theatre with which to expel all feelings of sorrow I have built up over the last few weeks (I told you I'd get back to it -- and you thought I'd forget). That's right guys, we've reached El Fin. I never thought it would take an entire month to end a relationship, but here I am spilling all my dirty laundry as if you were asking for it. As they say: you win some, you lose some. And sometimes you kick "some" in the balls.

But I'm not here to ruminate. Wait, no...that's exactly what I'm here to do. What I'm really not here to do is wallow. That's what the movies are for.

Every time I get the hankering to go see a movie by myself, I know I'm in for a great big sob session. I usually don't even have anything in particular to cry about, I just know I need some time alone in a dark theatre, surrounded by strangers and a bunch of really powerful emotions slapping me in the face. It always does the trick. And don't even talk to me about previews -- those things are so saturated with feeling (obviously, they are intended to suck you in so fast you never saw it coming. Which is why my life's dream is to become a professional trailer-watcher. Also massage-receiver.) that I usually don't even get to the feature presentation without soaking my sleeve.

A few weeks ago I spent an evening across the row from a happy couple enjoying "The Master." NOT ONLY were they obnoxiously oblivious to the black hole of despair seated mere paces from them, but they proceeded to mock the very serious and dramatically brilliant film throughout. Though I did learn the usefulness of giant scarves in muffling choking sobs and/or pathetically wet faces.  

This is why I stress the importance of feeling your feelings, though. Sometimes we store them up for so long that it takes longer to let them go -- the only way of which is to move through. I was surprised by a work acquaintance on the phone this morning who told me, after I confessed what I was going through (seriously, I have no filter) and that I'd probably be spending the weekend knitting by saying, "ah, well, we all have different ways of grieving."

Amen, brother. Grief is a constant in life, because we are always changing. It can come up for any reason -- the loss of a friend, relationship, living situation, favorite past time. To let go of that change in life takes a certain amount of courage and wherewithal, as well as the strength to admit it and let go. Crying is actually one of the most healing properties the human body experiences (trust the research -- though you'll have to find it on your own). My therapist told me yesterday that to adequately grieve an experience sometimes takes moving through each individual memory – and J.H.C. is she right. So give yourself some time and a box of tissues for the ride.

So that's why I go to the movies. That's why I knit through hours of Law & Order. That's why I call my friends and drink too much wine (er, don't do that last part). It's why I think about the future after the clouds part a bit. And that’s why I cry.

Mile Marker

Look, Here's The Thing:

I just happened to overhear a group of older gentlemen seated next to me refer to Mitt Romney as a "whore." I'm not here to delve into politics or my opinions considering, but I'd just like to note that that was...well...EPIC.

 

In other news, this little blog thing I'm barfing all my thoughts on hit a record of 1,000 page views yesterday. To clarify: that means total page views. Not daily, like the hundreds of other fashion bloggers that get like, 15,000 hits every two hours. Do I need to start showing you my failed attempts at doing my hair without burning several fingers in the process? Or how I hang all my clothes in the shower and leave it running all morning (I'm not even in the shower usually at this point -- because who needs to go through all that wet-hair-blow-drying shit at 7 AM anyways) in leu of the tedious process that is ironing?

 

BUT HEY, it's a milestone for me. I've been tenuously waiting for that moment so I could look at it and say, "YES, someone IS reading. I'm NOT just a crazy person living in her parent's basement talking to herself!" And in honor of it, I'd like to share something I wrote before the shit hit the fan and my life got turned upside down -- before I began hibernating in the bowels of my adolescent home:

 

Here's what we all know but no one wants to admit:

We're all searching. We're all grasping at straws, trying to find the one whose length matches that of our soul.

But what happens when they all seem to come back short? When we keep wading through the mud, looking for that platform to rescue us from the muck that keeps us stuck? When is the moment that we find that Oasis? How do we get out of our own way to stumble upon the thing that brings us peace, that pulls us along its path into the great plane where all things are possible?

It's that feeling, that feeling like flies circling, pinching at your skin, the feeling that with all the peace and joy and wonder at your fingertips, there is something entirely else clawing you from beneath to be set free.

I feel it, so much more often than not. This need to tear off layers of my skin because the subsequent material is so much more than what is at the fore.

Isn't that what art is supposed to do? Does this mean I am not an artist, that I can't tap into all that shit to bring it into the world? I guess I wouldn't be a very good mother.

But I'm drowning, choking on these things I use to keep myself busy, to appear useful. To appear together. To appear human and sane and worth it. There is so much more here, but I don't yet have the vocabulary for it. I don't have the tools-

The skills-

The courage-

To let out whatever animal is scratching at this cage of ribs.

When is it all released?

I could run for days.

 

...A little melodramatic, I admit. But I think this was the moment that I became totally honest with myself about how I was feeling at that time. There was just so much stuff I could feel within and around me, and I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground in how to deal with it.

 

So then I lost my apartment, my studio, and a portion of my drive to paint. Those pieces I was clinging to were systematically removed from my life. But like I've said before, that emptiness is where you find what has substance. In the vacuum I found writing. And for now, that's what I'll keep doing. Because the clawing from inside has subsided a bit. Because I'm moving in a different direction. Because we are always changing, always evolving, and always finding different paths to move along. And isn't that supposed to be the fun part?

 

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The Ice Burg Effect

Like most of us that came of age in the 90's, I love the movie Titanic. Not just because Leonardo became our first sex symbol (still is) or that Kate showed us what it means to be a woman (still saving up for those implants). It's the metaphor. Yes, lots of people died and it was an awful tragedy. But for the sake of this post let's pretend it was just a movie -- and one that does a damn good job showing us what it's like to be human, if you know where to look. And I'm not just talking about that scene in the car, with the handprint -- get your mind out of the gutter.

 

The point where this incredible (if maybe not totally plausible -- since when does Hollywood validate our own love lives, anyway?) story of two people meets the path of that giant chunk of chemical composition is what I'm really interested in. Two people, with lives and dreams and well, baggage; floating along unbeknownst of the fatal ice cube waiting for them in the ocean's giant cocktail glass. They laugh, they dance. Leo shakes some hair out of his eyes. We all see Kate's boobs (unfortunately I was 12 and seeing this movie with my father -- one of my most vivid traumas). They fall in love. Then all of a sudden their lives are ripped wide open from underneath.

 

This becomes so fascinating when we acknowledge what human beings are really made of. We are a surface, which is not so hard to see. We are the chunk that sticks out of the water, visible to the world with maybe a little more that we understand ourselves. And then we are the dark, murky subsurface. Everything that keeps an ice burg rooted in the ocean is also within us. Every memory we keep and instance we've forgotten -- it is all stored in our flesh and our bones; our brains and our cells and the atoms they all float upon. Everything a human being experiences in his lifetime does not float away on the air he breathes, but remains in pieces hidden within the puzzle.

 

So that which we are made of is a culmination of all that we have experienced. Got it. But what does that have to do with anything? Did Leo care that Kate was a prima donna princess, probably ingrained with the notion that she should get everything she wanted? Did Kate give a shit that Leo lived a life of lying and cheating, because that's all he ever knew of survival? No? Well they probably should have. Because it would have come up sooner or later.

 

This is the poignant moment here. The intersection where these two people decide to dedicate their lives to each other and the collision with the ice burg is where all of one person's shit meets all of another's. Because human beings are ice burgs, and all of what I am on the surface and underneath is all that I bring to any relationship I will ever have. And it will always be the same in reverse.

 

The only way to find your car keys is to retrace your steps, right? Well the only way to understand these things we know of our surface-selves is to retrace them back to their beginnings; which is to investigate our individual ice burgs. And sometimes it takes the collision of someone else that denies all of what you are or understand to really crack you open.

 

So to be in relationship with someone -- friend, family, coworker, lover -- is to say, "I am this, and you are that. We are different but by being together I see myself in the interaction." To see your patterns when they are magnified by someone else calls them to attention. To fix a destructive pattern is to see it and then retrace it from whence it came; which is to dive into water.

 

Human beings may all be ice burgs but that is not a bad thing. Buddy Holly and I both remember this as being one of the most poignant conversations we first had: we drew a picture together of this concept and really discussed what it meant. It means that for anyone to authentically interact with another takes a willingness to understand the ice burg. That to love someone takes little effort, but to be in relationship with them takes understanding ourselves enough to bring it all to the table. With humility and grace and acceptance. The learning never ends, but to acknowledge its existence in a relationship is something worth holding on to.

 

So yeah, it didn't end so well for Jack and Rose. But the beauty in it is what they found in their brief time together. They saw the pickaxe to their ice burgs in each other, and they moved towards them in anticipation. I hope you find your pickaxe -- or several, -- too.

 

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That Time Judy Bloom Killed My Confidence

Chicagoans: is there anything more humiliating and degrading than waiting at the Clyborn station for a train? On the Clyborn platform there is no such thing as good weather. Which if I were self-deprecating enough I'd show you by the state of my hair and general she-looks-like-my-feral-cat-after-a-bath appearance right now. It is never too sunny for wind, nor too frigid for rain. The Clyborn platform is where all weather elements come to play American Gladiator for the title of Most Likely To Ruin Someone's First Date. I know the Clyborn platform all too well, and we are sworn enemies.



I know because this is what us Suburbanites (Suburban Power!) endure every time we trudge out of the cornfields for some "culture." And today, I embarked upon the walk-train-walk-bus-WALK IN THE DOWNPOUR WITH A SHITTY UMBRELLA trek to take part in my very first ever writing workshop.



(Right here is where what I assume is called a "transition" should be, but because we didn't get to that particular skill and I don't really have the give-a-shit to conjure one, I'm just going to skip ahead to the good stuff.)



The scene: after a lengthy orientation on the particulars of the course, we are asked to go around and introduce ourselves. Can I mention the guy that talked too much about the vast circle of friends he has urging him to "tell his stories," and the sheer magnitude of words he feels struggling to break free of his corporate mask if only he could hone his voice? We get it, dude, you think you're a closet genius. Though how you claim to be in the closet when you talk so damn much, I have no idea.



Skip to my personal intro. We all know I have no problem talking (I guess me and Chatty McChatterson aren't all that dissimilar) but whenever I have to speak to a bunch of people I don't know I tend to get a little red in the face and start conversing with my shoes. So after rehearsing what I was going to say the whole time I was pretending to listen to everyone else, I got my chance at eloquently yet humbly stating my purpose as a member of the human race.



I'd like everyone to access their inner art critic for this next part. Please, spare me no expense when I say you should be reading it in the most pompous, arrogant, that-skinny-food-critic-from-Ratattouille-before-he-got-nice-esque voice you can muster.



My Big Intro: "Well, I've spent the majority of my adult life as a painter. But every time I experienced a lull in that process, I found myself drawn to writing. I find a kinship in your wife (haughty nod to instructor) because like her profession as a therapist, I have often been sought after for advice, which has culminated in this little blog experiment I'm working on. So I'm here to expand upon that need I find within me."



Sweet baby jesus, it was like somebody shoved Roger Ebert right up my ass before I started talking. Did I really just say all that? Only to get hit on by the guy next to me in line for the bathroom later? Are people really asking me about how "I'm a painter" successively, though I can clearly hear the mockery in their voice as I play my own words back in my head? Let's not even mention how when said "guy" commented on my scarf and I told him I made it myself he said, "a painter, a writer and a craftsman? What an artist!"



Fuck. I'm that girl.



Skip again to the end of the class, in which we are to write for 30 minutes based on a prompt of our choosing. I know before I've even started that what I'm writing is complete and utter horseshit. I don't even stick it out for the full 30 minutes because a) I'm afraid I'll miss my train and b) I'm so unimpressed by my own lack of ingenuity as I scramble to get through it that I can't bear to watch myself dribble out one more word of my Judy Bloom-wannabe essay any longer.



So I took the free book and the cd, the handouts and the info on the payment plan. I said goodbye to the girl I halfheartedly befriended, peed for the like the hundredth time and hurried the tail between my legs out of there. I weathered the -- er -- weather and somehow made it onto this bullet of steel rocketing me home on time. And you know what's sitting next to me on the seat? BEER. Hello, shame-induced alcoholism, have we met yet?



But you all know how this is going to end. Of course I'll be going back. Because I'm a masochist? Because every tortured artist needs their place of suffering and pain so as to fuel their work? Because I think me and Chatty Guy had a moment there, and I'd love the chance for him to wine and dine me over the manic drone of his incessant stories? NO. Because I'm a pusher, goddammit. And because I'm so done with giving up on things just because they scare me or make me feel foolish. Because I finally realize that yeah, someone that's been around this particular block might know better than me sometimes. Because I want to improve and I know it takes making an ass of yourself a few dozen times to do so. Watch out, Judy Bloom: this drowned cat's in it to win it.

Posted with Blogsy