Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Okay. So I had to leave my mother laying in intensive care so I could go to work on a “critical” project at work. “People” told me I should take a break anyway. “You need a break, Trill, go on, if anything happens you can come right back,” “they” said. “You have to take care of yourself. Go do your normal routine. It’ll help you feel more in control,” “they” said.
I didn’t feel like performing my normal routine. I wanted to stay with my mother. But I’m trying to be better about listening to the advice of other people. I’ve tried everything else, I’ve made a complete mockery and shambles of my life by being true to myself so I’ve been trying to take everyone else’s advice. Since everyone else has a lot of advice for me. Everyone else is really good at sorting out my problems. Which is, you know, nice of them. Helpful and all that. But a lot of times their solutions don’t seem right for me.
And their solutions usually cost a lot of money. A lot of people seem to be of the throw some money at the problem school of problem solving. And it does seem to work for a lot of people. Apartment or house too small and crowded? Move to a bigger nicer one! Car not running properly? Buy a new one! Not feeling well? See your doctor and get expensive tests and medicine insurance doesn’t cover! Stressed at work? Take a long vacation far away, really get away from it all! Can’t find the right guy/girl? Who needs a man/woman? Buy a house/car/wardrobe instead! Fill the voids with things and spend, spend, spend! Go on a pricey vacation and when you least expect it you’ll find the right guy/girl AND you’ll have a new house/car/wardrobe and tales of adventure which will entice and impress them!
See? Money really does solve problems!
Shame I don’t have money.
Because if I did have money I wouldn’t be tethered to a job I hate, stuck in a situation I can barely tolerate on a “normal” day when I want and need to be with my mother.
But. Taking that advice I’ve been given, I’ve been trying to catch myself up in my “normal” routine. Which isn’t easy. Because I’ve got a ton of work to do on a crazy deadline. Which is good in some ways because it does make me try to focus on something other than my mother. It does make me try to keep things in perspective.
Unfortunately that perspective is usually, “This is all a meaningless and stupid waste of time. None of this really matters. My mother’s existence is dependent on a bunch of machines and tubes and doctors and nurses, she’s in and out of consciousness, and I’m sitting here trying to come up with an eye catching and clever design for a client who is already bringing in enough money to buy Eastern Europe to use for their management team building retreat weeks.”
I feel horrible.
Yes.
I feel horrible. Okay? Yes. I feel something. A lot of things, actually. Most of them unpleasant.
I want my mother.
It hurts, physically, I ache for her and now I can’t even look over to her bedside or hold her hand.
All I can do is see the last image I saw of her burned in my retina. Her laying there in intensive care, a tiny, frail form buried under mounds of tubes and wires and machines and drip bags and the omnipresent and ever present vital stat monitor.
I turn up the volume on the iPod to try to lose myself in rock and roll. Because, you know, rock and roll save lives, or at least makes lonely/sad/pathetic lives livable until the next song. I’ve always assumed when I can no longer be lulled by music I’ll know it’s time to really hang up this life thing for good. Well. Yeah. So. The thing is, now, here, away from my mother, I’m trying to drown myself in music, forget about life for a while and all that, and it’s not working. Not even my beloved Pixies can hold my attention for longer than a couple of songs. My usual Sing Along with Kim and Do a Not So Bad Impression on Gigantic fun fest is more like a weird and half-assed American Idol audition. I have to leave it before the end of the song because instead of being mindless, mind numbing fun it’s just annoying and irritating. Chrissie Hynde? Ditto. A couple of weeks ago I found a lot of solace in a reawakened love of Nirvana. Everything old seemed new again. Kurt helped me cope with my mother’s situation. (Thanks Kurt, wherever you are, I owe you another one) But now Kurt’s voice just makes me sad and a little angry. “Stupid Kurt. Just like every other man in my life you left me.” Yes. It’s that bad. Weird. Delusional. Different.
Right. So. Losing myself in work: Not working. Losing myself in music: Not working.
Even the thought of shoe shopping has lost it’s luster. I’m broke anyway so it’s a nonstarter.
I needed a haircut. So I got one. I thought maybe a fresh cut and style might give me a few hours of rebirth, or at least a jolt of new haircut energy. You know, that new haircut smell, that new haircut outlook. But it didn’t. I have no idea if I like it or not. I haven’t bothered to care about whether or not I like it. Other people tell me they like it. Although this morning someone said they never noticed how much I look like John Mellencamp, something about the new haircut, they guessed. Do I care that I might look like John Mellencamp? No. Should I? I suppose. But not really. What difference does it make? I’ve got no one to impress, no one cares what (or who) I look like. It doesn’t matter to me or anyone else. My mother’s fighting for life in intensive care. My hair is of no consequence to her, me, or anyone else.
I did need a haircut, but what kicked me into doing it was a comment the day I arrived back in the office. One of the IT geeks was working in our department, rerouting something or something. I dunno. Some IT made up job thing. “IT Dork: "You look like some sort of superhero today."
Me: "I'm not wearing tights or a cape or big gold bracelets, am I? I meant to leave those at home."
IT Dork: "Mmm, I guess it's more of a Xena thing."
Me: "I look like Xena?!"
IT Dork: "More than you usually do."
Ummm. Yeah. Okay. “More than I usually do.” I’m going to leave that one alone. I don’t think I “usually” look like Xena apart from the fact that I’m tall, brunette and large breasted. Huh. Yeah. I guess by that description I do look like Xena. Swut. Anyway, Xena is not a look I want to cultivate, actively or passively. So I thought, “okay, ya know, Trill, you really need a haircut anyway, let’s take steps to change your apparently “more” Xena looking look back to something more usual, which is apparently less Xena than you are now.”
So yes. For a few minutes there I cared about what I looked like, mainly because I do not want to be the object of IT Dork’s Xena-rific fantasies. I think I’m probably pretty safe with this new apparently John Mellencamp hair.
But you know. Whatever.
None of it matters.
I want my mother.
She’d laugh about the Xena thing. I wish I could tell her. I wish I could ring her and tell her and she’d laugh and say something funny and convince me that I do not look like Xena but even if I were to look like Xena it’s not without interesting possibilities.
But I can’t ring her or talk to her because she’s in intensive care and in and out of consciousness and having difficulty speaking when she is conscious so, yeah. My hair and more than usual Xena-esque appearance is of no consequence whatsoever.
“People” told me routine would be good for me. Make me feel normal.
Ha.
Feel normal.
Let's muse about normal, shall we? What is normal? I’ve been trying to remember if I’ve ever felt normal. There was a while, a few years in college, when I thought I was a normal person put in abnormal situations and that’s why I didn’t feel normal but that I was in fact normal. Then I settled on the concept that normal is all relative and that my normal is not normal for other people so I can’t compare my normal to their normal. I learned the best way to cope was to take that attitude. It helps sometimes. The closest I’ve felt to normal since then was with HWNMNBS. I know. Be quiet. I’m just saying. I felt kind of normal then. I felt accepted and okay, at least, which were huge steps closer to feeling more normal than usual. Joke was on me when he dumped me because he couldn’t accept me and I was far from okay with him. So I suppose those times of feeling more normal don’t count because I was actually delusional, not normal.
So I guess then, that I only feel normal when I’m able to classify my normal as not everyone else’s normal. Status quo is more an appropriate term for me than normal. Normal’s relative. Status guo is just that.
So I’m trying to be all status quo. Work. Cat. Laundry. Hair cut. Routine.
It’s just that I have such a difficult time caring about my routine life when things are my version of normal that now, when things are definitely not normal, even for my relatively skewed version of normal, I absolutely cannot summon a second of care for anything in my life. I’m trying to take that advice, the whole take a break, go home for a while, manage your life thing, but what do I have to come home to when I take that break? A job I hate, IT geeks making Xena comments, a couple more engagement rings flashing around the office, volunteer groups telling me they don’t need my time anyway, they’d prefer a check because, “har har, I should know better than anyone they need money,” a haircut I don’t care about, laundry, a stack of bills I don’t have enough money to pay, a lease renewal notice with rent increase, taxes to be paid on an income which barely covers the current rent, and a cat.
The lone purpose I can find is my cat. Which is cool. He’s cool. I missed him. He does comfort me, that lump of purring fluff. But. Not to short change him and his coolness, the fact is that the only purpose and point to my “normal” routine and life is a cat.
My compartment’s really small and warm. But it’s amazing how big and cold it seems at 2:00 in the morning when I’m staring wide awake with the image of my mother burned into my retina.
Yeah, getting back into the ol’ routine has been great!
What’s my normal now? Jumping and having my heart skip a few beats every time the phone rings. Answering with trepidation and fear that “something” has happened, mind racing ahead to flight schedules, car rentals, cat food, all things “GET HERE NOW!” before I even say hello. Not making any plans for more than one day in advance and even then making sure it’s understood I may not be able to make it if I have to leave at a second’s notice which is very possible. Living under a state of general emergency, with appropriate contingencies in place: A bag packed and ready to grab and go both at home and at work; cat sitters on alert, several week’s worth of cat food stocked; racing through regular chores with rapid speed, and always with mobile phone on and firmly in hand at the ready to answer; feeling enormously relieved to have the laundry, grocery shopping, walk home completed, feeling like, “whew, okay, got that done, got through that without an emergency call.”
I thought, “maybe this is one of those times I honestly could use a drink or two.” Turns out it’s not. Halfway through one drink it occurred to me if I got drunk I might not respond fast enough to an emergency, or worse, get confused in my drunken stupor and end up getting details wrong and then having to explain I got it all wrong because I was drinking and then people would think I have a drinking problem and that would embarrass and shame my parents, not that my mother would know at that point, but still, not exactly the sort of thing I want hanging over their heads if “something” happens. “Such good people. Well. Except for their youngest girl. Can’t get and keep a man, no children, no home, she rents you know, no children, not even a car, no wonder, now we know it’s been a (whisper) drinking problem (unwhisper) all along. Such a shame, I heard she was absolutely smashed when they called to tell her. Really, it’s just pathetic. Good parents, nice home, good Christian upbringing, all that college, the best schools, she had everything, and what does she do? Drink her life away, and on her mother’s sick bed, no less. It’s just disrespectful.”
Maybe you’re not from a small town so maybe you’re not familiar with that sort of discussion. There’s always a discussion like that about someone involved with a tragedy in a small town. I think it’s necessary. It deflects the pain of someone suffering or dying onto something more manageable like shaming and tut tutting someone who’s alive. Gossip and rumors. That’s one of the reasons why I bear the expense of living in a large city. Anonymity. Sure, it’s expensive here, but no one cares enough about me to gossip about me except at work. I can lead my pathetic and increasingly solitary little life in privacy and without the nagging rumors and speculation fueling my growing angst with my life. Being single is difficult. Being single in a small town is suicidal.
Yep. The ol’ routine. Normal.
I ventured into my dating email box, got scared and left. Suffice it to say Mr. Right/Wonderful/Not a Serial Killer was not waiting for me there. Which is good because if there had been anyone interesting in there the email would read something like this, “Hi, thanks for your interest in me. You seem real swell. Maybe we can talk sometime. But not right now because I can’t tie up my phones because my mother’s in intensive care and I had to leave her because of a job I can’t stand where they don’t understand my situation so while I’m here dealing with some stuff at work I have to keep my phone lines clear in case someone tries to reach me in case there’s an emergency. So maybe when she gets better we can talk. If she doesn’t get better I probably won’t really feel like talking for a while, so in either case you might want to just forget about this whole thing even though you’re interested in me and you seem like a swell guy. Bad timing and all that. As you can see I’m kind of a mess and probably not the sort of person you thought I was based on my profile. Sorry ‘bout that. Bad timing. Anyway, thanks, and maybe if my mother gets better we can talk.” Yeah. Not exactly the sort of email a guy wants to receive from a woman he’s never met. So it’s good, actually the one good thing in my normal life, is that this aspect of my life is as pathetic and woeful as ever.
The abnormal part of my normal that’s really getting to me is that there’s no way to deal with or talk about any portion of my life without factoring in my mother’s “situation.”
Not that I mind, not that I feel put upon because of my mother. I don’t. I feel put upon by the rest of my life. A life about which I have little regard anyway. I don’t care about any factor of my life except my cat. And yet this life about which I have no regard is interfering with the one thing I do care about, my family.
