improvising

Last week I wrote about change and how good it is, how it keeps our minds agile and ready for what devil may come. But today I want to write about the flipside of so much change, where so much is uncertain that you end up doing the same thing every day.

A lot of people experience "travel fatigue," where they stop absorbing new experience after a long period of time on the road. That is when you feel like a homeless person instead of a tourist, and all you can focus on is getting a cup of coffee, resting your feet on a sunny bench, and finding a clean place to go to the bathroom. Inevitably, you start to think to yourself that every place is the same--and why the hell do you need a clean place to go the bathroom, anyway? Isn't that counterintuitive?

I'm having another one of my many days of frustration at being an un-salaried worker. I spent another day hustling, trying to simultaneously research something and sell myself, and although the prospect of getting this plum assignment is pretty exciting, I have to admit that part of me feels like I'm wasting my time; I'm not going to get it. The other part of me says "Not with that attitude you won't!" My second-grade teacher would be proud.

I am still not used to the ups and downs of freelancing. I was sort of relieved when I didn't get called back for a second interview at The Perfect Job For Me, since that would have led to, you know, me...working in an office. I guess it was really The Perfect Job For My Skill Set, and not Me per se...but being offered the position would have been good for my self-esteem, which always suffers when nothing is happening. These are the days when I feel like, in foregoing a traditional job because of fear of routine, I end up doing the same thing every day: freaking out, scattershot research that leads to dead ends, half-assed attempts at self-representing, baking cookies. In the end, it feels like trying to find a kernel of corn in a swimming pool by scooping out cups of water and then throwing them back in.

I think I need some popcorn. Where the hell did that analogy come from?

hare-brained

It is now the Year of the Hare. According to Chinese astrologists, it will be a calm year following the Tiger's year of turmoil. Hooray...?

But I prefer to think of it as a year not of the hare, but of the jackrabbit. We saw these in the desert last week and I can't stop thinking of them. They blend in to their desert surroundings, their gigantic ears standing on alert like tall radars. At the slightest detection of trouble--or opportunity--they take swift action. I am thinking of this year as a resting time, too, but resting with the notion that at any moment, we could take swift action. We can be like the hawks, opportunely waiting our moment for the right current of air to take us away.

Marido is out of town. I miss him in all the usual ways--out of comfort, out of desire, out of excitement...but I also miss him in an unexpected way that I think has something to do with his existence being a new sign that things are different now.

Although I miss him intensely, I am glad that we have some time apart to break up the routine. It is not just the routine of the everyday activities that is nice to escape, but the mental patterns you become accustomed to regarding someone's role in your life. With Marido so far away, I am reminded of our physical language, how we support each other daily, but also his overall role for me as a man who has encouraged me to pursue what I love (like writing) and change what I don't (like smoking).

As we know, our minds both seek and create patterns, which in turn give us stability, logic, and form foundations for seeking extended truths and higher-level problem-solving. It is because we can accept the physical realm that we can build skyscrapers, that when we fall asleep at night we can trust that we will wake up in the same place.

Sometimes our reliance on patterns can work against us, though, creating limitations of the imagination rather than platforms for expansion. I think that this happens when people get depressed, anxious, or fearful--our minds attach to a mental conception as tightly as it attaches to the physical world. We see ourselves as inflexible beings, incapable of change.

But change happens. We can resist it, but we miss out on a lot. It's like refusing to enjoy a comedy, just because we were expecting an action flick. Adaptation is more than adopting new survival skills to a changing environment, it's recognizing when we need to change our environments ourselves and knowing when the moment is right to do so.

If this is the year of waiting, I am glad to be waiting it out with Marido. And when the time comes to take action, I hope we will be ready. I think we will be.

resistance is futile

First off, movies. Saw two great ones this week:

The Man From Earth is a heady piece, the final work of noted sci-fi writer Jerome Bixby, who wrote some of the most beloved installments of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. It all takes place in one room, making me think it would be perfect for a stage adaptation.

Mary and Max is a claymation loosely based on a true story of a pen-friendship between a young Australian girl and an old guy in New York with Aspberger's Syndrome. It was silly, funny, emotional, and altogether awesome. I can only watch movies with compartmentalized sadness these days, and my crying in this movie was limited to two brief moments.

With the rain, I am in full-on hibernation mode. I leave the house for about an hour each day, to exercise or run errands. When I'm hibernating, I like to cook and eat. And eat. And cook. And cook and eat some more. But being inside doesn't mean things can't be exciting! I keep things fresh by eating expired food. I think of it as an in-house consumer challenge. I really broke some personal records this week, eating yogurt that expired in November and canned beans that were, by Marido's estimate, "at least five years old." I cooked them first. I also pickled vegetables.

I've been sleeping deeply, with vivid dreams, averaging nine hours a night. I never thought I could sleep so much. And despite the nothingness-quality to my days lately, the sleep is not a depressing, escape-style sleep, where you wake up groggy and confused. I wake up feeling refreshed. This is a new thing for me.

Earlier in the week, I felt depressed. I weathered another lukewarm job interview wearing my newly purchased adult clothes. Following last week's interview, I went to Macy's to use the bathroom and, catching a sideways glimpse of myself in a mirror, mistook myself for a salesgirl. Further proving to the world that I am not cut out for corporate (or in this case, nonprofit--) America, I was able to bring up both drugs and incest at my interview this week.

Sometimes the days seem so thoroughly bland that I get extremely disoriented, as though I am in an all-white space with no walls, no ceiling, just your feet touching the white floor. The fact that it is white is important: it doesn't feel oppressive or claustrophobic--in fact, it is infinite, endless. The routine sometimes gives me a somewhat euphoric feeling. In the evening, when Marido comes home, I like to put my head on his lap and just experience his warmth and life. After a long day of me rolling around in these three rooms with only the ants for company, his presence can feel overwhelming--but in a good way. Things feel meditative lately: peaceful, happy.

Related: A Life Less Ordinary with Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz

advice

The email I sent to my friend today:

Hey C,

congrats on the packers' win! Must have been a helluva weekend for
you. And I bet you were both happy to be able to drink...and then oh
yeah, the hangover. that is always great.

how are things coming along? i like to hear about what you are up to.
i have realized that i just don't understand social media. like i have
accounts on facebook and twitter, which is pretty much all i can
handle, but i never seem to get any news out of them. I want to get
better at it but it overwhelms me, so I just resort back to primitive
one-on-one emails and such.

i am trying to get better at social media too because I am about to
e-publish something completely ridiculous, and I want to get the word
out. I wonder if you have any advice for me on how to build a
following, and how to get the word out without being annoying. then
again i'm not even sure that i want it really publicized.

OK jeez, i'll just tell you what it is. I'm writing ROMANCE. that's
right. my cousin approached me about providing content for this
e-publishing start up and i kind of just tossed the idea out there, as
a joke, because i refused to write what he inittially proposed. now
i'm staring at this contract and i wrote my first sex scene today and
in less than a month--depending on how the illustration team goes
(yes, ILLUSTRATIONS, it is all really weird) i am going to have
something published online for which I get 50% of royalties. it could
be nothing, but it could be a big deal, seeing as the romance novel
market is really big. we've created a character destined for serial
greatness, sort of modeled after the comic Brenda Starr (you're from
the midwest so I figure you would know?---the redheaded girl reporter
who goes out and has romances with men who wear eyepatches? yep!)
anyhow I have to admit I'm pretty uncomfortable/dazed by the whole
concept. I haven't told my folks yet and don't really want to (i even
feel weird telling you, how fucked up is that?). I am going to be
using a pen name. I am sort of worried about my family being really
upset about the material but at the same time I want people to buy the
book so I can join the ranks of the paid.

do you have any advice, things you learned from promoting [your magazine] and such?

s

recidivism

I like this word, "recidivism." I looked it up to see what it meant, and it means "a repeat offender," and be used both as a noun and an adjective. I don't know why it popped into my head, but maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is Groundhog Day.

Marido and I have been at each others' throats this week. I blame it on not enough sex and too much time on my hands. This week we have argued about (a) god, (b) astrology, and (c) Shepard Fairey. Neither of us believe in these things--particularly the Shepard Fairey--but we argued until both of us were pissed off.

I said some things to him the other night that felt like a breakup; it was like a reversal of what happened in November, when he said some things to me that felt like a breakup. It is hard to be happy and comfortable in a relationship when you're constantly feeling like the other person is going to break up with you. I hope we can get through this. I don't know what to do about it. I don't like it.

Yesterday I went out with a friend I've known for a long time, and I was asking him for his unbiased opinion on the situation. He doesn't know Marido and I haven't spoken to him in more than a year. He basically repeated back to me what I had said to him, and somehow it made all the difference in the world. I suddenly understood that I was unhappy and uncertain, and was transferring all of my dissatisfaction with the world onto him--just the way I had done with Ex many years ago. It's not so much blame, it's just exerting some semblance of control over what is the most obvious and important to you.

It's not Marido that I'm mad at, it's other things. It's my lack of direction, it's my frustration with this joblessness. It's the feeling that my life is going places and I don't know how or where to fit in, if I should try to steer things in an arbitrary direction or just see where they go? These questions are hard enough with a career, but what about with another person? I suddenly felt like I was carrying his expectations as well as mine. I didn't know if I could do that. I resented his perceived expectations on top of mine. I began to feel contemptuous toward him, and I wanted things to end.

It's never easy to know when you are ending a bad relationship or bailing out of a perfectly good one that has just fallen on rough times. But Karim asked me to think about the good relationships I know and what defines them, and I think it's an ability to grow together, even when things are hard--not only to support someone else when they are feeling down, but to be supported yourself when you are down.

That, for me, is hard. I don't like anyone to see me when I'm down. I'd rather leave and be down by myself than be a burden on someone else.

Karim also said to me last night: nobody ever said relationships were easy.

employability

I'm still looking for a job. The odds of finding a job in the Bay Area seem pretty good at first glance, since there are approximately 500 new job postings every day on craigslist. But, upon further inspection, of the 500 new jobs listed:

-150 are for Java/PHP/Linux developers, none of whom are actually looking for a job
-75 are paid studies for (a) crack addicts, (b) migraine sufferers, (c) mommy bloggers
-50 are ****DO YOU LOVE THE ENVIRONMENT????**** street canvassing jobs
-another 50 are not actually anywhere in San Francisco, but are telecommuting positions for shady startups that pay on "commission"
-30 are for extremely specific positions like "Cantonese-speaking Paraplegic Paralegal" or "Queer-friendly Attack on Mars Pinball Technician with 1985 Ford F150 Pickup"
-20 are for upper management positions
-100 are for service industry positions, of which half are for bartenders/servers with "fine-dining experience"

The remaining 25 positions are various office positions that I could be qualified for, depending on which areas of my resume I feel like padding.

This morning I attended an "open interview" session at a cafe downtown for which I'd received a call-back from an application I submitted one or two weeks ago. I filled out a three-page application that didn't contain any information they didn't already have on my resume (except my shitty handwriting), and waited alongside seven other women, half of whom were dressed in SUITS. After waiting for almost an hour, the owner came out, asked me my name, paperclipped my written application to my email that she'd printed out, and told me today was purely a "matching faces to names" day and that, if selected, I would be called back the following week for a second round of time-wasting!

Related:
Stuff Unemployed People Like

faking it

Sunday afternoon, Older Brother's pet bird flew away while his cage was being cleaned. He's a three-year-old African Gray parrot--a bird that can actually be quite charming and snuggly. For a bird. I talked to Older Brother and his wife just an hour or so after this happened, and they had already given the bird up for dead. They wandered the neighborhood looking for it for a while but, given that the bird had never been outside before, and given the prevalence of bird-eating wildlife in the area, they put his overnight chances of survival or finding his way home at approximately zero percent.

Marido and I visited them the following evening for dinner, and the mealtime conversation took their natural turn of Older Brother orating on a variety of "family-friendly" topics like affirmative action, genocide, and organized religion. Whenever this happens, I get vaguely queasy and stop breathing. Not only is it really unpleasant to sit through these pointless stands, but I hate the way he talks to me if I ever try to question his point of view. That said, I get the feeling he saves these specially pleasant conversations for family, the only safe haven where he can say anything he wants without anyone hating him.

After dinner, he asked me if Marido and I wouldn't mind posting some of his Lost Bird signs he'd printed on the mailboxes in the subdivision. I suggested we all take a walk together, seeing as I don't know the exact locations of said mailboxes, and perhaps we could actually take the time to look for the bird once again. The night before, every time I woke up I couldn't help but think of how scared and cold the poor thing must have been, if indeed he were still alive.

Once outside, I realized just how improbable it was that we were going to find the bird. It was completely dark, and with the airplanes passing intermittently overhead, it was difficult to hear much of anything. After emitting his bird whistle every few moments, we would sometimes hear a tiny sound in the distance--but it was hard to tell if the noise was a bird, or what direction it was coming from. We trudged around the neighborhood grimly, coaxing each other along.

Older Brother and his wife aren't doing so well lately. The two of them have no kids, few common interests, and treat each other increasingly poorly. However, they are also incredibly loyal to each other. It's quite unpleasant to be around them, but I am trying to spend more time with them so that maybe I can help them somehow. My sister-in-law specifically asked for my help, and I'm not sure what to do, but I figured just being there would be a start. Trudging around in the darkness, I couldn't help but feel that this was going to be the last fucking straw between them. I began to understand, sort of, what it felt like to be my Older Brother--being pulled around this subdivision in the darkness, grudgingly seeking something that he didn't even believe was still alive. I also began to understand what it was like being my sister-in-law, and constantly dealing Older Brother's negativity. I began to resent him for not being more supportive and hopeful in looking for the lost bird, and I also began to feel like it truly was a lost cause. I was on the edge of giving in to Older Brother's idea of going inside, drinking scotch, and forgetting the bird ever existed.

Then something sort of amazing happened. We were dragging our heels down an alley of garages, and Older Brother would reluctantly call for the bird at my or his wife's insistence, and suddenly we heard a distinctly pet bird-like noise that couldn't be mistaken for some far-off hawk, an electronic blip, or otherwise. He called again, and the bird called back. Or, rather--he meowed, like a cat. That's the kind of bird he is. We surrounded a bush between two houses and found the shivering bird stuck in a pile of branches. It was something like a miracle to find that little guy mewing in that bush in that dark alley.

It just made me think that sometimes we do things that may seem like complete long shots, but we do them for a reason--just to go through the motions of something that we know is right, as futile as the may seem. Also, sometimes all you need to save a relationship--even if it is with a mewing bird--is a little effort and a little faith (of the non-religious kind).