So I know that there are a lot of people in the world who have it a lot worse than I do. If I acknowledge that, is it okay if I bitch and moan for a little while? You don’t have to read this post (and you probably shouldn’t, on account of how long it is. Sorry about that. Normally I am all about the brevity).
So it isn’t even that things are bad, I mean, I have a couch in my apartment now and everything. It is just that today was kinda rough because I had a lot of feelings converge on me from different directions. I won’t bother you with all the details, but I will instead enumerate them as bullet points:
- I am money stressed right now. I make okay money, I suppose (I mean, I could be doing much worse) and I am grateful to have a job BUT this whole year has been one large expenditure after another. Every month it seems that there have been large and mostly unanticipated expenses. I would be just fine money-wise if I had an uneventful month. I would just like to have a month where everything was normal. But that’s just life, right? This happens to everybody and maybe I should not bitch and moan so much? Okay.
- I am still breakup stressed. It has been hard as of late. When I’m at work I keep literally taking my cell phone out of my pocket to text her – we used to text a lot during the day – and then I remember that I can’t text her. Yesterday I went with some friends to The Farmers Market at The Grove (it is basically the food court at a fancy outdoor mall in Hollywood, but it is supposed to look like the kiosks and food stands of a real farmers’ market, I guess) and I started to get overcome by all the memories of being there with her and eating crepes there with her and eating fruit cups with her. It was really hard. Last night my roommate Eggplant (still test driving blog names for her) asked me why I went at all if I knew it would be like that and I told her I didn’t want to be hiding from the world. Though part of me wants to right now. But that’s how it goes, right? Everybody hates breakups? And maybe I shouldn’t bitch and moan so much? Okay.
- I am work stressed. As I said above, I am grateful to have a job, but lately (since I graduated and went back to a normal 9 to 5 schedule [actually it is 8 – 4.30]) my work has been expanding beyond the bounds of that which I can reasonably handle. Quite a lot is being asked of me lately by quite a lot of people, all of whom believe that they are my number one priority. I know that it is like that at every job (or at least every job that I have ever had) but the thing is that my primary job function is to figure out how much to pay people and then to pay them, so when I screw up or get behind or have to wait for someone else to get their shit together, then people don’t get money. The other day I was talking to one of these guys and he was stranded in Arizona and his wife in Nevada couldn’t buy milk because they were dead broke and he was begging me to find him a way to get his wife some money. Part of me is all like, “That’s your fucking fault dumbshit” (because it was), but then the bleeding-heart-liberal in me was all like, “Okay, I will find a way to help you out, you dumbshit.” (I was able to get his wife some money, BTW, because I am humanist, and awesome). But my point is that when I get behind, real people’s real lives get fucked up. But that’s how it goes, right? Everybody has shitty times at work? And maybe I shouldn’t bitch and moan so much? Okay.
- I am cat stressed. I used to have two cats, I sort of still do. One of them has been with me since San Diego and she is pitifully stupid, but very sweet. The other one I love dearly but she is ornery and kind of a little shit. My mother calls her “The Devil Cat”. Well, my Ex said that she would take her but hasn’t yet and The Devil Cat seems to enjoy antagonizing my roommate Eggplant and I feel really bad about it but I’m not sure what I can do. I would feel awful getting rid of her because we raised her from a kitten and I think that she wouldn’t understand being around other people who don’t indulge her insanity. I think that she would be all sad the rest of her life. But that’s normal, right? I should stop anthropomorphizing my pets, right? And maybe stop bitching and moaning about them so much? Okay.
- I am nostalgia stressed. Back in 2006 I went to England and France with my then-wife. It was an amazing trip and I’m now one of those people who constantly drops the fact that I have been overseas. Like, if you say, “I love French fries!” I would say, “I love the way that the French have different names for different types of restaurants, based largely on the type of food and the quantity of it that you can get there. Like a ‘café’ is different from a ‘bistro’, that sort of thing. I learned about that when I was in Paris.” And then you would say, “Fuck I had no idea that you were such an obnoxious douche bag, you obnoxious douche bag.” Or if you were all like, “Man, English is a confusing language.” Then I would be all like, “You know people don’t realize it but there are almost no freeways across the English countryside. It is mostly two-lane – or even one lane – roads that are lined with hedgerows, so you can’t even see what you’re driving past. When we rented a Vauxhall and drove to Stonehenge on our way to Bath, it took me days to adjust to the hedgerow thing.” And then you would say, “Listen you asshole, I was just making an offhand linguistic observation, I was not inviting you to give me some dissertation on Anglophilia.” . . . . . . Wait, I have forgotten what the fuck I was writing about. Hold on, I need to go read the beginning of this paragraph. Man, I am a terrible blogger. Just hang out for a second . . . . . . . Right! So the point was that I went on this awesome trip. Well, I thought that I had lost all of the photos from that trip when my external hard drive fried. Well the other day I found a bunch of them on a random memory card. As I clicked through them I was struck by how different my life is now then it was then. I’m not saying that I was regretting anything; it was just one of those sad moments of reflecting on how strange life is. Had I stayed in San Diego and in that marriage I would probably have a mortgage and kids by now. That’s strange, right? It makes one reflect quite a lot on one’s life and it made me realize how thoroughly unaccomplished and unsuccessful I am. But a lot of people feel this way, right? We all have to deal with the harsh reality of life, right? And maybe I shouldn’t bitch and moan about it so much? Okay.
- I am height stressed. On the internet website Facebook, a girl I knew in high school randomly posted a picture that I am in. In the picture I am at my ten year high school reunion (that’s right, I am that old. Deal with it.). Well, it isn’t a posed picture or anything. It is just me and a couple of people standing around talking and none of us knew that there was a picture being taken and (honestly) I don’t even look very good in it at all. BUT! I do look extremely short in it. In the picture I am standing next to a lovely and elegant (and extremely hot) friend from high school who was wearing GIANT heels. Additionally it doesn’t help that in the picture you can’t SEE that she is wearing GIANT heels. (Funny story: the elegant and graceful friend I am standing next to is still totally awesome and I totally had a GIANT crush on her in high school and I told her so at the reunion and she has not talked to me since. I don’t blame her at all though, she got married a couple of years ago to a guy who is – by all accounts – awesome. But it was yet another moment in my life during which I should have just kept my god damn mouth shut for the sake of propriety. [Even funnier story: every couple of months I have this dream wherein she is teaching me to bowl. One time we totally beat all of the other bowling teams and we won a whale!]). So I look very short in this picture. And – listen – I know that I am, in fact, short. I have been short my whole life and I’m not generally sensitive about it (because I rock shortness as hard as anybody really can), but it just brought the point home to me at a time when I’m already feeling fairly lame and just generally short/fat/bald/old/generally undesirable/unaccomplished. But do not fret, I will not be buying lifts or a pinky ring. I will not start driving a sports car or wearing a military dress saber. I will not be doing any of those things that men do to make themselves feel less short. I will simply wait out this bout of lameness and eventually I will remember that I am awesome and that will be that. So maybe I should not bitch and moan so much about the things I don’t like about my body? Okay.
- I am stressed. A few nights ago I was out at a strange little bar in the San Fernando Valley. The bar was called The Tender Glow, which – though it was a perfectly nice dive – it was not. It did not glow at all, if you must know. The thing that you have to know about the entire San Fernando Valley is that it is where the strip mall was perfected, so it is filled with strip malls and asphalt in the way that the Yosemite Valley is filled with trees and beauty, or the way that the San Joaquin Valley is filled with dirt and disappointment. Since it is all strip malls, you can never tell what kind of place a place is until you place your foot inside the door. This place was a very cool dive. It was narrow, but had faux-leather red booths of the sort that I like in a bar. Well I met up with some school friends there (it was exactly the sort of sudden and random getting together of people that I enjoy) and a lovely friend of mine (who does not yet have a blog name) jokingly (and sadly, platonically) rubbed my shoulders and was taken aback by the fact that they feel basically like granite. I carry my stress around in my shoulders and back, but doesn’t everybody? My friend seemed curious in the way that little boys are curious when they come across a dying bird, so she worked her way down my spine and found the kind of knots usually reserved for gnarly old willow trees. She accused me of having Scoliosis. I tried to explain that I just haven’t relaxed – really relaxed - in four or five years, but I realized that that sounded kind of crazy, so I just gave up. There is some truth to the fact that I over-stress. There probably are people who could live my life and not be as stressed out as I am, but the thing is that I wanted so much more from life (this goes back to the whole ‘unaccomplished thing) that I stress about everything. I stress because I am in a constant and life-long competition with an imaginary man in my head who is taller than me and smarter than me and funnier than me and better looking than me and cooler than me. He makes more money than I do and he fucks better than I do and he writes better than I do and he’s happier than I am. This is why I am not a particularly competitive person. I have no interest in competing against real people, I have the son of a bitch in my head to deal with. And he is winning. But everybody is stressed out right? Everybody is competing against their own hopes and dreams, right? So maybe I should not bitch and moan about it so much? Okay.
So I feel kinda bad if you read this entire blog post in the hopes that you would be entertained or something. But let’s face it, you’re not reading this right now. I lost you back somewhere around the French fries thing.
Anyway. I feel better now than I did when I started writing this. I hate that this blogging thing is like therapy for me. The truth is that I’m more honest here while I am typing than I ever really am when I TALK to people. The irony being that the only people who read this blog are people I know in real life. It is hard to play it cool and unflappable in life when everybody has access to this back door into my brain. But whatever, you’re not reading this right now anyway.
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