Anticipation

I can't sleep.  Maxearnest is calling me at lunch, and I feel like a little kid before Halloween.

God, I hope we click on the phone!  If we do, I'm going to pack up my things and fly to Iceland--just for a few days. 

Part of me says how absolutely crazy this is.  Part of me keeps waiting for something to go wrong. I'll tell him something, or send him an older photo, when I was heavier, and expect him to think "Oh, now I'm not interested."  But let's be honest, he knows all the stuff I tend to hide from this. So when I've told him all the things that I usually hide, he is probably more likely to think "duh" than "uh oh."  We've talked about some of the big things.  I think there is a possibility we could make our lives compatible. We certainly have trod the areas that I feel like matter.

I can't quite understand why someone that cool, on so many things, is single.  But then I am.  :)

Blogging, communication and relationships

I'm blogging less at the moment because Maxearnest and I have been e-mailing a lot.  Tonight he said something that originally through me for a bit of a loop.  I was over-reacting, assuming that one piece of information meant something else, when it didn't.  Fortunately, we clarified, and I think it was fine.

But, my first response was to freeze, want to cry and then run to my blog for comfort.  Now, I know that Maxearnest reads this, so it isn't exactly like I was shutting myself in a room with only an iPod to comfort me, but it is, I think, important to notice how much I go introspective when something bothers me.  I think part of it is good--figure out what the issue is before you bother someone else with it.  But part of it, I think, can be isolating--no one will understand your emotions.  Deal with them on your own and only bother other people when you can be logical about it.

One of the things my dad did do over Christmas, which was lovely, was try to empathize with how hard his criticism of me was for me growing up.  (I think, in fact, that my dad might have felt enough shame over it that that is what pushed him away from it and he went back to his 'genuine' explanation for not wanting to empathize.  It is funny--I am so much my father's daughter in so many ways, but I automatically try to empathize with the people I love.  I may do it all wrong.  It is important that I ask more questions and I listen to what people are actually feeling, and not assume they are feeling what I would feel in that situation, but I'm constantly putting myself in other people's shoes to monitor how something I do might affect them.  The difference between my dad and I is huge here.

The downside (in addition to needing to listen more and assume less) is that I don't always honor my feelings.  

I think this blog (and a document on my computer titled "If I had a Blog"  It has all this stuff that doesn't seem interesting enough to blog about.  Although lately, most everything goes here.) are fundamentally useful to me.    They are a lot cheaper than therapy, and can't betray you the way a therapist might, and it is free.  The disadvantage is that there is no relatedness.  It is, in a weird way, public loneliness.   I like the fact that people read it, both because it is nice that people find my meanderings interesting, but also because it makes me go farther in exploring connections.  But there is no relatedness with the blog.  With Maxearnest, there is relatedness.  It changes the entire dynamic.

The thing with Maxearnest today was I probably want something in the future (although not for a few years, and life changes, so who knows how I'll feel in 3 years) and he said something I interpreted as saying "I don't want that."  I think what he meant was "I would not do that casually.  It might be a possibility at some point in the future, but a lot of things would have to fall in place for that to work out."  Which makes sense.  I think that is my view too.  But it took me asking a question to clarify what he was saying, instead of assuming that A must equal B.  

I'm loving e-mailing with Maxearnest.  And I kind of love that he knows so much about me from my blog.  I tell him things, and he says "yes, I know."  And he does know.  Yesterday, I was checking e-mail on my phone, and the connection was super-slow.  The headline said "No Funny Games" and I thought he was upset that I said something.  Actually he was saying that I wouldn't enjoy a movie called "funny games."  He is amazingly accepting of me.  I'm a little excited.  We can't meet for nearly a month but I'm beginning to build castles in the air.  I'll try not to move in, but I'm certainly enjoying the real estate listing.  

(And, for what it is worth, Nate hadn't called me for over a week and I haven't seen him since before Christmas.  I know he is having a stressful life, but he never let me be part of his support network.  I can't be with someone who only wants to see me when things are easy.  Life is too crazy for that.)

Children or Art

I'm in NYC for work--so I went to hear two of my favorite living artists have a chat.  In fact maybe that "of" doesn't belong in the sentence.  I think Tony Kushner and Stephen Sondheim are my two favorite living artists.

I have refused to read Sondheim's recent books (although I have beautiful copies sitting on a bookshelf--a gift) because he is too mean to other people and those rare pleasures I get from art I seem to protect as vociferously as I protect my vulnerable, private self.  (In fact, one of the many small arguments my dad and I had were when he started talking to me during a performance of Billy Elliot and I was outraged he would want to know the name of the lesbian talk-show host during the show when it is one of the rare things I've enjoyed in the last few years.  I was abrupt (and pissed he would talk during the show--he never used to do that sort of thing).  He was furious I was abrupt and even though I apologized (3 times) he brought it up the following week and months later.  

While I love Sondheim's work, I don't really care what flaws he finds in "It's alarming how charming I feel" or "to make two lovers of friends."  I just want to enjoy those few transcendent moments when they come.  Why look for the flaws in things of beauty?  (FWIW, I saw Porgy and Bess this weekend also; some amazing moments.  Audra McDonald is my favorite stage actress, but the whole was less than the sum of the parts.  The overture is thrilling and several other moments were as well, but it didn't add up for me.  I think the story is just so weak, compared to the music.  I care about characters, and I want a character I can identify with who comes to some revelation during the show.)

Much of what I learned about the world, I learned through the scores of Sondheim.  It became a way of understanding that other people felt left out; that I was not such a freak.  I would say from the time I was 18 until I was, maybe 25, Sondheim was the lens I used to try and understand myself and my world.  This blog would never exist if that lens had been the Brontes, or Jane Austen, or Katharine Hepburn. 

It was so interesting to hear Kushner and Sondheim's discussion about writing; Sondheim writes lying down, like being on a sofa at the shrink, because that is where the soft underbelly is.  Kushner said he couldn't and did almost an imitation of a hedgehog to show how protected he needs to be in writing.  (Now, Kushner clearly writes in amazingly beautiful, vulnerable, multi-layered characters--, not only did he write Angels in America;  he wrote Caroline or Change.)  

At the end of the evening, Kushner asked Sondheim to read a poem he recommended: "Love Note to a Playwright."  Sondheim said he couldn't read the end without crying.  Kushner said "I know."  Sondheim read the poem and cried.  It is a comic poem about how great Sheridan was, because he blew off all his friends to conserve his energy for the writing that matters.  It ends:

Who, using up his mail [n.b. correspondence from friends and others] to start
   An autumn fire or chink a crevice,
Cried, "Letters longer are than art,
   But vita is extremely brevis!"
Then, choosing what was worth the candle,
Sat down and wrote The School for Scandal.

Sondheim wept.  I've seen him speak in person maybe a dozen times.  I've seen and heard many more interviews.  I've seen him sort of get shiny eyes, but I've never heard him sob.  And I wondered if Sondheim is using this poem the same way I use Sondheim's work--to realize that he is not alone, and other people made the same sacrifices he did.  And it was worth it. So basically, the way I read it is that Sondheim identified with this because it said "an artist has to make choices to put his (and it usually is a he) art above the people who care about him."  

I loved Sondheim because he showed me how you can let down your persona with people you trust, but I think I adopted other things from his work as well.  I sort of adopted this way of viewing the world.  But, in truth, I'm a pretty mediocre "artist."  Maybe Sondheim wants to sacrifice the people who care about him.  And he wrote Sunday in the Park with George and Company and things of transcendent beauty.  I, on the other had, can't sell my novel.  And even if I did and it became a best seller, it is about as meaningful as a Katharine Hepburn movie.  It deals with issues of substance in a sweet way;  but it is no Das Kapital. And I sometimes wonder if that was the choice I wanted  to make, or a consolation prize: 'fine dad: if no man will ever love me, I will make something of myself in the world.'  Maybe I latched onto Sondheim's work because it affirmed what I saw as my only choice.

Sondheim wrote a song called "Children and Art," which basically says that those are the only choices worth choosing.  But there was an undercurrent--you have to pick.  I consciously chose "art" (whatever that means) for a long time because I didn't see how to make a relationship that would work for me, when I didn't even know if I was lovable.

In both the novels of the Brontes and of Jane Austen, the characters force themselves to avoid wallowing in angst or self pity.  And sometimes, I wonder if they are right.  Does having this blog, where I do an awful lot of navel gazing (but for the record, I do this in lieu of therapy, except when I'm working with the counselor my parents work with, and this seems to work better than therapy for me, because, honestly, I'm always honest here--but the rest of my life is not all-angst-all-the-time) make me better able to be out in the world?  Or does it make me wallow?  I never trust men who say "no baggage" because I can't really believe that anyone over 17 doesn't have baggage.  But I do think we should pack lightly.  When I travel (aside from Christmas), I never check a bag.  (OK, there have been some exceptions--a month in Turkey involved 3 carpets on my trip home.  I rarely check a bag).  My bag is small enough that I can carry it myself and I never avoid doing something because of my luggage.  Even when I went to Troy, in the summer, and it was over 100 degrees, I had a bag small enough that I could carry it with me and not go back to the city I left that morning.  And I think this blog is the equivalent of those Eagle Creek packing cubes--I can travel light, with well organized luggage.  But I don't really know if it works that way.  Or if it is just more navel gazing.

Scolding

Maxearnest scolded me for something.  I asked him the same thing twice in 2 e-mails, and he scolded me, and I just felt horrible.

Maybe I'm just not strong enough to do something like that. I was already blue.  After Dotty left I went to visit a friend I rarely see because I get affluenza whenever I visit her.  The TV is always on.  I've watched more television in the last 4 days than in the previous 4 months. We go shopping a lot.  She gets stressed out about crazy stuff she reads on the internet, and has a bad temper.  (I should also say, she is generous, kind, smart and I have a lot of loyalty to her; I don't think I would have gone to grad school if it hadn't been her influence.  She taught me intellectual excitement.  But I don't see her that often because I have a hard time at her place.)  So I'm already stretched thin. And I just totally over-react.  But I do that to criticism, from anyone I allow into my interior circle.  I'm strong with most of the world, but there are few people I allow myself to care what they think  And when I do, I am much too vulnerable.  Even a gentle scolding (and he was gentle in his scolding) and I totally over-react.  

 My friend was in a vile mood--slamming doors, yelling at her mother, demanding the conversation go exactly as she wants at all times.  So I went shopping because my friend doesn't like my favorite store.  I didn't want anything, but I just needed to get away from her for a little while, but I didn't want any crap.  I just wanted to read a book or pet my cats or ride my bike.  And there I read Maxearnest's e-mail on my phone.  I could feel how blue I became.  Like the bottom fell out.  I can't think when I have to type on my phone.  I type like 2 words a minutes there. I have to think about the letters, not the thoughts. I had enough awareness to notice it, but not enough awareness to do anything about it.  I didn't even have an iPod that would allow me to manipulate my mood with music.  

I adore approval from a man I care about, but disapproval makes me blue, almost frantic, like a deflating balloon, trying to push out air is a few spots, to feel full and accidentally popping herself.  I think that most disapproval in the world Public Woman handles with aplomb, and that part of me protest private girl from anything like that, but someone who knows private girl can bypass my persona side and I have no defenses.

A little more than 2 years ago, my dad got made at me for something I was going to submit for publication.  He said I was shaming my mother and publicly humiliating her.  It was a voice mail, and I listened to it while I was on a date.  I became frantic and agreed to never publish the piece, just trying to undo the horrible damage I had wrought.  And then I re-listened to what he said, and re-read the piece (and my brother, our family counselor and several close friends read it) and realized, there was nothing critical about my mother in the piece.  Nothing at all.  3 months of therapy later, my mother and I were on stronger footing, but if I hadn't had everything either in e-mail or as a recorded message, and other people, whom I really trusted hadn't weighed in and said "there is nothing like that" I would have just assumed I'd done this horrible wrong.

My dad only ever said I betrayed him once.  It was when he didn't like a movie I had recommended.  So, yes, that sense of needing to be perfect runs very deep.

After we got back, I wrote Maxearnest and he sent me a lovely e-mail and I just started to feel calm again.  But I do just completely over-react.  I see how much I was over-reacting.  But I do.  I don't know how to get that under control.

American Crossroad

I hate Karl Rove, but I seem to be entering an american crossroad.

I have had a fairly clear rule: any man I might meet in real life does not get my blog information.  And I have pretty much stuck to it.  Bobby and John have been the main exceptions, but it has been after we became intertwined, and one other man--I forget the name I gave him here, it might have been Stephen, but I'm not sure.

But there is a gentlemen; he told me to call him Maxernest on the blog.  Which means he know about my blog.  He lives in Europe.  We e-mailed.  I gave him my blog.  He read it vociferously.  248 hits from his country in the last month. We e-mailed more and more, and I began to wish that geography weren't such an intractable mistress. We e-mailed some more.  I sort of assumed it was theoretical; the Atlantic is smaller than the Pacific, but....  But Maxernest wants to come visit.  He has geographical mobility, and even though to a Europhile like myself, he seems to have a perfect life, it seems like that he would consider actually moving to the U.S., if we liked each other as much in person as we do on e-mail.

I'm not sure if I'm a little numb from shock or a little hesitant, because he reads the blog.  I can't imagine giving up my life in "Seattle" for another country.  In part because I have a a good job, with a defined benefit pension. If something went wrong after a few years, I couldn't get a job like this again.  But also, I hate feeling like an outsider.  I would make a lousy expat because that sense of not fitting in is so very strong for me, and I know if I moved to a country where I didn't speak the language, or didn't speak it well, I would feel like an outsider.  My grandfather was born less than 100 km from where he lives now, but when I visited (my grandfather's birthplace--I've never met Maxernest), I felt so lonely there.  I knew I was a 2nd generation American, and didn't belong in Europe any more.  Even though I still sort of fetishize Europe.

I couldn't imagine "Just Me" being enough to make up for someone else feeling like an outsider.

I suggested we move to Skyping.  I want to get to know him better in voice, rather than e-mail.  I hope I like his accent and he likes mine.  I have a great voice, for an American.  But an American, with a slight California twang is what I am.  But I do like him.  Dotty is going to Belgium for another friend's wedding.  She met him last year, and it has been a fairy tale.  I was happy for Dotty's friend, but wishing for a fairy tale of my own.

I feel slightly removed from the situation, like I'm watching someone else's drama.

Post-Dotty

So I have to figure out how to organize my life now, and I think looking at the ways Dotty and I supported each other and figuring out how to keep some structure is important.

Dotty and I will obviously continue to be friends.  We will talk on the phone, but it is going to leave a huge hole in my life.

Dotty and I got together about 6 times a week.  None of this was quantified, but this is about, an average, of what happened.

• Twice a week to work out.
• Twice a week to write.
• Once a week for 'culture'
• Once week for something else.

• expanded my social circle.  She has a lot of friends (most of whom wouldn't make my list as friends).  Maybe I need to be a lot less selective in my life.
• Supported me being healthier in more creative ways.  We did a CSA (where we got a share in a local farm, and then each week we'd get together and cook all our veggies for the week, throughout the summer and early fall).  We were going to get community gardening beds together. We did lots of hikes, went kayaking.  I tended to suggest more conventional exercise; she tended to suggest paddle-boarding, driving out of the city to pick apples or getting together to cook.

I think I have working out covered.  

• Sunday: running class (for the next 6 weeks)
• Monday: A neighbor is coming over to do an exercise tape
• Tuesday: Nothing
• Wednesday: Running Class (next 6 weeks)
• Thursday: Small group 'boot camp' class.  I've paid for it for the next 4 months.
• Friday: Spin class
• Saturday: Possible spin class (OK teacher, but I don't like her like Fridays)

Writing:  Dotty and I wouldn't talk that much during this time.  We'd just meet at a common place and write together.  I had a tendency to procrastinate.  (I'd even been known to write a blog entry when I should have been working on an article.)  But it was important.  It is possible I should schedule going to the coffee shop or library a couple of times a week.  I know I need to get out of the damn house now that Dotty won't be here.

Social Life:  I don't know!  Honestly, several of Dotty's friends would like to be friends with me, but I don't really click with them.  I tend to be highly selective in my friends.  It's weird because I'm intellectual extroverted, but I tend to be introverted on everything else. 

Culture: Honestly, I don't know.  There's so few good things I see.  I'm scared if I quit going to the symphony, opera and theatre, my world will get a little smaller.  Occasionally I see something heart-breakingly beautiful.  But it is pretty occasional.  I don't know if I'll keep going on my own.

Creative healthy things:  This one will be hard for me.  My tendency is to think a little grimly.  I LOVE ice-skating and tolerate spinning, but I make time in my life for spinning because it makes me sweat and not for ice-skating because 'all' it does is make me smile.  (Skating really isn't very good exercise.)  On one level, I think it is really important, but I haven't made that a priority, and I think I need to figure out how to do that.  I won't do a CSA without her (I travel too much).  I probably won't do a community gardening bed either (ditto).  I don't think I'll go on long hikes (aside from some groupons) or pick apples or visit a 'local' farm.  I think that is OK.  I think I will miss the company more than those activities.

Restaurants:  Dotty and I went out to eat a couple of times a week.  I think I can live without that.  It was her company that was way cool, not whatever restaurant we happened to find.

So I guess my resolutions are:

• Find a couple of new friends
• Write at the library or coffee shop at least once a week (preferably twice)
• Make space for some creative, healthier things.
• Get out of the fucking house!  Even when it is raining.

Dotty (who is naturally thin and an MD) thought I was in great shape.  She never let the fact that I was a size 14/16 upstage the fact that I tended to have an easier time than her in whatever exercise we did.  It was really important to me that she affirmed that I wasn't lazy or in bad shape.

Dotty encouraged me to be more playful and less grim with food and exercise.  She wanted me to enjoy food.

Blue Nights. And Days.

I'm re-reading The Year of Magical Thinking so that I can be up to date when I read Blue Nights.  This should help cheer me up, in a weird way.

Right now, I'm so sad.

I said goodbye to Dotty tonight.  I cried a little, then went to the elevator of her building and wept like a crazy lady, because I didn't want to make things harder for her.

Of course, I usually hide how I'm feeling from other people to try to not make other people uncomfortable.

But I'm so sad.  It is funny reading Joan Didion, because I'm like "oh, yes--I did that!  And my John's death obviously didn't affect me as extremely as her John's death, but they were variations on a them.

Tomorrow, I will try not to feel sorry for myself, but tonight, I just wish I could wave a magic wand and these 2 years will be over and Dotty will be back.  What could possibly happen that could make these 2 years worth while?  I feel like there is nothing to look forward to.  Which is silly--hopefully I'll meet new people, make some new friends.  Maybe I'll fall in love. I doubt it, but I hope so.  Wouldn't that be lovely?

I just hope my life doesn't end up like a Chekhov play.