Golly. The last Saturday. Was yesterday. Golly.
What I need to do is walk to over by the candy dish and get the pocket camera. On said camera is some (probably very sucky) footage of the Liza Minnelli concert in Primm last night. Yes, we went! And it really was free (to the first 500 people who requested free tickets). You can't not go to a free Liza Minnelli concert. It's disrespectful to the memory of Dudley Moore. (Oh, you can have all the Cabaret you want, old chums, but for me it's Arthur.)
So I'll talk about Liza later, when I'm less tired and can gently tease about small things without taking away from her being an entertainer of a great and enviable passion and generosity.
I think I'm having a hormonosity-thingie. I was ready to burst into grieving tears all day. Except I couldn't, because I was too exhausted with sadness. So I just set my chin and carried on, and laughed and lived, and sometimes stopped to say, "Damn, I could just cry to bits any second. It's the strangest thing."
I have no idea why I was on the constant and unpleasant verge of being tearful. Maybe someone was (ahem)ing over in Estonia and God had to kill a kitten.
But I was, sad that is (not killing kittens or causing them to be killed), and then, geez, I debate whether to mention this...
... but I will. There's this person whose stuff I enjoy on Flickr who wanted to meet up so I could see the things he's decided not to photograph for the public. I thought his offer was kind and I was very pleased to receive it, but it's me. It doesn't matter how much I like you - it's really hard for me to plan to meet with people. I have the sleep issues. I have the "if it's not for work, please don't make me kick away my option to read next to my husband and critters instead" issues. And I have the "Jeezum crow, it's frickin' hot outside, can't we just email?" issues.
You pretty much have to catch me already in motion to change my course. It's like one of Asimov's laws. Wait, no, I'm not a robot who is concerned about killing humans through inaction. I mean the other Isaac. Those laws.
But, I remember life before modems, so I get how some people see meeting in person as important. So I thought I was careful about making it clear that this is just how I live: socializing has to happen naturally. If I'm going to make plans for fun, then I also have to make plans for things I don't want to do. And I don't want to do that. Don't make me do that.
Just ask the people who do actually see me face-to-face. It's tough to get me to lunch. You could be Donald Sutherland offering to treat me to Tamba, on a day when they have paneer and pappadums AND gulab jamun, and I'd be saying, "Look, why don't you go with so-and-so? And I'll try to meet you guys there? But don't hate me if I don't make it. Promise? Okay! Kisses!"
(Why Donald Sutherland? I don't know. He seems like a good conversationalist. Christopher Lee, then, if you prefer. He reads.)
(Quick Googlepanic here to make sure Lee is still alive. Whew. 86, huh? Maybe I better try to make that lunch date after all.)
Anyway, apparently I can't express myself for beans. (Or should I say "for toffee," with a knowing wink to everyone who came of age swooning over The Thornbirds?) He felt rejected. I felt boggled. We're okay now. Where was I going with this?
Oh yeah. So, then my mood was even sadder as these emails flew back and forth. I couldn't believe I was even involved in any kind of drama or miscommunication based on a social event. I almost felt young again! You're carpooling with whom for the dance?!
Seriously, however much of a self-involved and brooding prat I may seem here, I get along with everyone. Except for the people who hate me on sight. But everyone who matters? They may not like/respect me or agree with me, but we get along. There is no drama. I have my drama exclusively shipped in from bad customer service experiences. I'm very discerning in this way.
And now I had common drama, delivered in bows with guilt-tickling gift cards. And it was just going to sit there until the delivery man came back for it.
But I still didn't cry because, as mentioned previously in jest, my heart is just a crusty bit of asteroid that some farmer overturned in his field once, then he got radiation poisoning and died. Like in the (awesomest awesome) show Dead Like Me, when Rube tells Georgia that if she doesn't reap the soul, it will just rot inside the body. Since seeing that episode, I can now add "was overlooked on reaping day, am now just a crunchy expired soul in a well-meaning shell" to my concerns, along with the standard "this is all being secretly filmed" worry and its cousin, "everyone can read minds except for me."
I told Mike that maybe I needed some hormones, and he agreed, and then I said that was stupid, because you can't even try stuff like that without at least taking vitamins and getting more exercise first, releasing endorphins, I don't know. And then he said, "Why don't you take the multivitamins in the cupboard?" - and you would think any man who'd been married a year and a half would've stuffed those reasonable words back down his throat before they could get out.
And then, after I'd taken a shower so I could at least life the burden of lank hair from my list of suffering, he offered me some chocolate, because I've repeatedly told him all about how science has proven that it's a mood elevator. Honestly. Giving me chocolate and indicating that he's been paying attention? He was just begging to become the focal point of my vexation later when I couldn't drive the car past 55 mph on the interstate because, I swear, it's vibrating too much.
Which is almost interesting because, wow, 20 years ago, in days of open-minded soul-searching - before I decided that my heart is a petrified Jelly Belly from the Reagan administration, stuck to the side of a rice jar in a box in someone's garage in Illinois - I used to take classes at the Esoteric Philosophy Center in Houston.
I ended up not buying into a lot of the things people believed, but what I did enjoy was discovering different ways to be productively and supportively introspective. However, one theory did stick with me, the idea that the state of your car reflects the state of your emotions, and the state of your home reflects the state of your head.
Now, I don't believe it. It's too easy to spin this in any direction you please. But, there I was emotionally shaky. The car was shaky. Hmmm. And my brain probably is filled with the neural equivalent of rodents, much like my home... oh my.
Is there an overall point to any of this?
Uh.
Maybe?
1. I was sad, and I still don't know why.
2. If we'd had plans today, I would've canceled them due to sadness.
3. I would've been sad for canceling our plans.
4. It's a relief to me to not have plans, as letting people down leaves me immobilized
5. Please don't take it personally if I don't make plans with you. If you know me well enough to make plans, then you already know I'm mentally unfit to make plans. In fact, that's right cruel of you. Stop it.
Am I sad now? No. Annoyed that I can't sleep. Wondering where the summer went. Hoping I'm menopausal.
I don't normally like videos described as "made with pieces of my soul." That's just gateway copy to writing "Mrs. Robert Smith" over and over on your college-ruled notebook in hand-shaded curlicues. (True for you fellas as well.) But Tori Amos often pleases in her covers of others, and this YouTuber does have a sense of wistful solitude that's good for those "my heart is a hard little beanie ball in the ripped crevice of a deflated vinyl bean bag chair" moments:
Comments