Tuesday, April 17, 2007
biter.
Ok, so this is going to be the shortest entry in my history. Because petithiboux did it, I have to do it too. So, please: Go judge me.
Monday, April 9, 2007
ostrichism.
Why is it that I cannot find a consistent ruling on how to spell al Qaeda in either Merriam-Webster's 11th edition (c. 2004) or Chicago Manual of Style's 15th edition (c. 2003)? Chicago at least lists September 11, September 11th, and 9/11 as stylistic variants of that historical moment, which Merriam-Webster's, astonishingly, does not. But both books are silent on al Qaeda/al-Qaeda/al Qaida/al-Qaida. I am especially irritated with Chicago, which is usually so AR it's redundant, because the spelling does not appear in their section on "Political and Economic Organizations and Movements" or "Military Terms: Forces and Troops," not even in their section on "Arabic Names." Christ, if there was anywhere to use the term as an innocuous example, it was there. How is it that *these* examples made the cut, but al Qaeda/al-Qaeda/al Qaida/al-Qaida didn't: Syed Abu Zafar Nadvi, Aziz ibn Saud, Tawfiq al-Hakim? Though CMS does tiptoe around being helpful by saying that "al-" is a prefix, requiring the hyphen, and is not to be dropped because it is an integral part of a name, just as "Mc-" or "Fitz-" are parts of certain "English" (well, that's questionable) names.
Is this some anti-terrorism Patriot Act supersecret karate shit, is this stubborn American ostrich-like refusal to acknowledge the group (nanny nanny boo boo, my eyes are closed so I don't see you), or is it actually possible they either (a) didn't make a ruling on it yet or (b) forgot? I doubt it is the latter, but if it is the former, I am irritated. Just make a decision! We need style on this now, not five years from now when the hub-bub has moved onto other events and issues.
Is this some anti-terrorism Patriot Act supersecret karate shit, is this stubborn American ostrich-like refusal to acknowledge the group (nanny nanny boo boo, my eyes are closed so I don't see you), or is it actually possible they either (a) didn't make a ruling on it yet or (b) forgot? I doubt it is the latter, but if it is the former, I am irritated. Just make a decision! We need style on this now, not five years from now when the hub-bub has moved onto other events and issues.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
On therapy.
A couple nights ago, I was juggling two simultaneous work deadlines while hyperaware of the Wedding To-Do List taped to my office wall, on which highlighted items and their deadlines screamed for attention. And Dave was--I don't know, if I am to be fair, he was busy being a typical groom, browsing iTunes for new music, completely oblivious to me and my quandary. And my attention was then on all four things: 1. the 109.2 issue in page proofs, 2. the 109.3 issue in preparation, 3. my To-Do List, and 4. my unhelpful groom. Naturally, the one that was least important in terms of temporal deadlines--Dave--became the only one I could focus on. I kept proofreading, or trying to, while concentrating on breathing deeply, and evenly, or so I thought. But I felt so incredibly irritated and taxed with all the juggling that I couldn't catch my breath. So, my attention was now further divided: 1. the 109.2 issue in page proofs, 2. the 109.3 issue in preparation, 3. my To-Do List, 4. my unhelpful groom, and 5. my inability to breathe normally. So I went into the bedroom, left the lights off, and flung myself onto the bed, where I concentrated *only* on deepening my breathing and allowing myself to feel whatever I needed to feel even if I wasn't ready to confront the problem or effect change. I knew this is what I should do because it is what I always do when I stress myself out. And I'm no fool, I know I brought it on myself and that it was stress-related.
But this was the first time I wondered if I was having a panic attack. Is that what a panic attack feels like? I wondered. Or am I overplaying my being momentarily overcome by stress into a serious psychological condition that I don't think I've earned somehow? Do I have Panic Disorder? Can you have panic attacks without having a Panic Disorder? What even is a Panic Disorder? Am I overthinking this?
It got me thinking though. Because the minute I gave the "panic attack" idea credence, I also lost my power over the situation. (Disclaimer: I obviously speak only of my experience here.) I went from having moments where I overstressed myself and needed to have a time-out, which I could handle by myself, to needing a doctor to diagnose me with a condition for which he or she would provide either a solution or, I guess, an ear to listen, a shoulder to lean on, and a clipboard or manila file to make it all feel more official.
But, on the other hand, I thought, some of the most brilliant, well-adjusted people I know go to therapy regularly. I found myself thinking, well, if she-who-is-so-well-adjusted goes to a therapist, who am I to say I don't have issues? Maybe I do. Maybe I should be seeing someone too. Does everybody need it, even the well-adjusted, or are the well-adjusted only so because of therapy? Am I overthinking this?... (I wear myself out.)
This was all part of a larger musing, though. In my last post, I was feeling righteous for cleaning out my emotional closet, and while in no way do I regret asking people I consider friends for honesty, I am realizing that issues with my past are just that: "mine" and "past." I still feel brave for giving myself something I obviously felt I needed--as L'oreal says, "I'm worth it," oh, hey, z-snap!--but I know this kind of thing is another thing that lands other people in doctor's offices. Another friend of mine was coming to a similar milestone in life--watching someone she had once loved marry--but she chose to leave the dredging and stirring be, contenting herself with the incredibly zen realization that the answer was obvious ("he didn't pick me"), the self-same advice my own wife ended up giving me. That zenness, obviously, wasn't good enough for me because in the last week I've disregarded both my friend's proud example and my wife's sage advice and delved the shit out of the past. But I did so because, like duh, I'm quite aware the several hes in question didn't pick me, and that's hardly the issue. I didn't want I love you (in a couple cases this is where the trouble started), I wanted a reckoning, an acknowledgment, that some crazy shit had gone down, we both were sorry, and ah voila, now we were friends. End scene.
Is asking for and offering long-past understanding healthy (closure, process, truth-telling, and so forth) or is it simply an inappropriate move from those who can't control themselves? Is this something a therapist would trace back to abandonment fears or deadbeat(nik) daddy issues? What about my ridiculous filing, organizing, list making, my increasing fear that I'll never accomplish it all, my fixation with getting all the hair up off the carpet, and the spots off the mirrors in the hall--is that OCD? Or back to the daddy stuff, do I have ADD, which according to this guy can be renamed "Absent Dad Disorder"? Am I overthinking this again?
This all led to even more large-scale musing... Sure, we all have issues. But do we let the issues have too much control over us with this culture of therapy and pill-popping? Therapy seems in some cases to be both good and necessary, but why do we live in a time and place where people talk as regularly about the therapist(s) in their lives as they do their hairdresser, ear-nose-and-throat guy, or OBGYN? Or is that good--that the mind gets as regular tune-ups as the rest of our parts and that people are (a) not ashamed and (b) in their daily discourse taking the stigma away from therapy? Is it good to have a therapist?--though I suspect the answer to that question depends on what kind of therapist you have. One friend's therapist seems to mostly sit and listen while she works out her own angst. Then there was the therapist on Law & Order the other night who was considered on the "cutting edge" of her field, "curing" sex offenders based on the theory that every sex offender was abused as a child him or herself. Her therapy, though, was basically one big (and completely misguided) experiment, involving psychically regressing sex offenders back to the point at which they were abused and resocializing them in a positive and nurturing manner, and it was taking place in a very large uncontrolled laboratory, which was, basically, her patient roster list vs. the world. And I don't care who you are or what you did, but it isn't good to be someone's experiment.
And what about therapy and people like sex offenders? What is it about our culture that we truly think someone with the pathology to lord their power over someone more helpless can be "cured"? Is that the scientist in us (wanting a solution to a proof) or the religious person (needing to have faith)? Or it that the beautiful naivety that occasionally still reveals itself in the human race: this idea that we shouldn't give up on anyone or anything (rapists and serial killers or walking on the moon)?
But this was the first time I wondered if I was having a panic attack. Is that what a panic attack feels like? I wondered. Or am I overplaying my being momentarily overcome by stress into a serious psychological condition that I don't think I've earned somehow? Do I have Panic Disorder? Can you have panic attacks without having a Panic Disorder? What even is a Panic Disorder? Am I overthinking this?
It got me thinking though. Because the minute I gave the "panic attack" idea credence, I also lost my power over the situation. (Disclaimer: I obviously speak only of my experience here.) I went from having moments where I overstressed myself and needed to have a time-out, which I could handle by myself, to needing a doctor to diagnose me with a condition for which he or she would provide either a solution or, I guess, an ear to listen, a shoulder to lean on, and a clipboard or manila file to make it all feel more official.
But, on the other hand, I thought, some of the most brilliant, well-adjusted people I know go to therapy regularly. I found myself thinking, well, if she-who-is-so-well-adjusted goes to a therapist, who am I to say I don't have issues? Maybe I do. Maybe I should be seeing someone too. Does everybody need it, even the well-adjusted, or are the well-adjusted only so because of therapy? Am I overthinking this?... (I wear myself out.)
This was all part of a larger musing, though. In my last post, I was feeling righteous for cleaning out my emotional closet, and while in no way do I regret asking people I consider friends for honesty, I am realizing that issues with my past are just that: "mine" and "past." I still feel brave for giving myself something I obviously felt I needed--as L'oreal says, "I'm worth it," oh, hey, z-snap!--but I know this kind of thing is another thing that lands other people in doctor's offices. Another friend of mine was coming to a similar milestone in life--watching someone she had once loved marry--but she chose to leave the dredging and stirring be, contenting herself with the incredibly zen realization that the answer was obvious ("he didn't pick me"), the self-same advice my own wife ended up giving me. That zenness, obviously, wasn't good enough for me because in the last week I've disregarded both my friend's proud example and my wife's sage advice and delved the shit out of the past. But I did so because, like duh, I'm quite aware the several hes in question didn't pick me, and that's hardly the issue. I didn't want I love you (in a couple cases this is where the trouble started), I wanted a reckoning, an acknowledgment, that some crazy shit had gone down, we both were sorry, and ah voila, now we were friends. End scene.
Is asking for and offering long-past understanding healthy (closure, process, truth-telling, and so forth) or is it simply an inappropriate move from those who can't control themselves? Is this something a therapist would trace back to abandonment fears or deadbeat(nik) daddy issues? What about my ridiculous filing, organizing, list making, my increasing fear that I'll never accomplish it all, my fixation with getting all the hair up off the carpet, and the spots off the mirrors in the hall--is that OCD? Or back to the daddy stuff, do I have ADD, which according to this guy can be renamed "Absent Dad Disorder"? Am I overthinking this again?
This all led to even more large-scale musing... Sure, we all have issues. But do we let the issues have too much control over us with this culture of therapy and pill-popping? Therapy seems in some cases to be both good and necessary, but why do we live in a time and place where people talk as regularly about the therapist(s) in their lives as they do their hairdresser, ear-nose-and-throat guy, or OBGYN? Or is that good--that the mind gets as regular tune-ups as the rest of our parts and that people are (a) not ashamed and (b) in their daily discourse taking the stigma away from therapy? Is it good to have a therapist?--though I suspect the answer to that question depends on what kind of therapist you have. One friend's therapist seems to mostly sit and listen while she works out her own angst. Then there was the therapist on Law & Order the other night who was considered on the "cutting edge" of her field, "curing" sex offenders based on the theory that every sex offender was abused as a child him or herself. Her therapy, though, was basically one big (and completely misguided) experiment, involving psychically regressing sex offenders back to the point at which they were abused and resocializing them in a positive and nurturing manner, and it was taking place in a very large uncontrolled laboratory, which was, basically, her patient roster list vs. the world. And I don't care who you are or what you did, but it isn't good to be someone's experiment.
And what about therapy and people like sex offenders? What is it about our culture that we truly think someone with the pathology to lord their power over someone more helpless can be "cured"? Is that the scientist in us (wanting a solution to a proof) or the religious person (needing to have faith)? Or it that the beautiful naivety that occasionally still reveals itself in the human race: this idea that we shouldn't give up on anyone or anything (rapists and serial killers or walking on the moon)?
Saturday, April 7, 2007
spring cleaning.
It was first suggested to me, in a college literature class, that in Shakespearean plays marriage = death. Indeed, his tragedies concluded with the near or total annihilation of his core characters; likewise his comedies came to a close with major players having “bit the dust” in another way, often through orgiastic group marriages of several couples. (That idea—marriage = death—certainly puts Four Weddings and a Funeral in a different perspective.) And in many ways, unimaginative all, I agree with “Will” and the many others who’ve made the analogy, including many a reluctant bachelor, inappropriately texting the one girl that got away while trashed at his bachelor party. There is certainly some finality to marriage, and in many ways it is a little death: You’re kissing goodbye the delicious unknown (although I imagine married life—for all its connotations of sameness and settling—has many a surprise up its own sleeve).
But perhaps it takes these little deaths to start a new life (see: Jesus and Lazarus). And what is marriage but a chance at that—a fresh start, a blank page, a clean slate, and so forth?
And so—along with all the wedding coordination, the ordering of dresses and favors, the paying of the vendors, and duly noting of the rsvps—I’ve been cleaning out my emotional closet. And fuck yeah, it feels good. And right. I’ve been writing to people things I’ve wanted to say to them for years—not mean things, mind you, just words seeking final resolution. Things that I couldn’t say because of who I was and where I was at when the timing would have been relatively more “right.” In some cases, the answers are so obvious (as my wife explains, they didn’t pick me), but to be clear I’m not in any way writing romantically, hoping for some late-hour confession of love.
In fact, it is partially because of one person in my emotional past that it occurred to me to do such a thing. Oftentimes guys are exactly the ones to avoid any and all emotional confrontations, but one day out of the blue he wrote me seeking closure and offering friendship. I still count this as one of the most unexpected, most honest, and most awesome interactions I have had with any person. I deeply admire him for it.
I’m not trying to be a drama-mama. I’m settling and cleaning up the dust, not stirring the pot. I’m trying to start this marriage business off with an emotionally clean slate. To finish mixing all the metaphors I can think of, I’m not trying to muckrake, to muddy the waters with the past, I’m trying for once and for all to dredge the canal, to get rid of all that old shit with those people I think are worthy of starting over with. Afterall, in all cases, we’ve worked hard to piece together a friendship, so it should be something worth working at. What I’m saying is I am sorry, so just give me this one little thing (“I’m sorry too”) and we’ll throw the past away and go in a different direction—as genuine friends, friends that don’t keep secrets, friends that I love and understand whole-heartedly.
Despite the fact that time has passed, and we’ve each moved on, I still can’t pretend that what happened and didn’t happen, what was said and everything left unsaid, that all these things go away or get less awkward. What we went through sucked, and we were strange and mean to each other, and maybe he or maybe I deserved better or more … but we came through it and are the better for it.
Am I not supposed to say these things? Am I supposed to be such a blushing bride I spend all my hours looking forward, and not a one glancing back? I don’t doubt for a moment that I have made the right decision in choosing Dave to share my life with. He is my choice—heart, head, loins, and all points of interest in between. And I know this life we’ve been building slowly, inching toward together, inching toward a future, I know it’s good. BUT isn’t it true that your “bad” experiences, the ones that ripped you a new one so to speak, shape you just as much as the “good”? And anyway what is this fucking good/bad dichotomy I’ve got going? It’s never entirely one or the other. Afterall, “it takes the dust to have it polished” and so forth.
Well, I refuse to apologize for how I feel, and if I am truly friends with these persons now, I should be able to say how I feel out loud, because friends should tell the truth to each other and be able to deal with the fallout. I am proud of myself for demanding of those in stickier parts of my emotional past the things I would of any friend: truth and reconciliation. It’s been a real process to become a person able to demand reckoning. The person I was ten years ago would have never have put her feelings on par with another’s; call it Hawaiian manners, call it trickle-down Confucianism, call it what you want—I just never would have dreamed of doing so. And it’s taken the better part of these ten years to become someone who thinks she deserves more. I’m finally realizing the meaning of my own name (Mayumi), which translates from the Japanese to something like “truth is beauty and beauty is truth.” Fuck yeah.
And if they can’t step up to the plate? Maybe they aren’t worth it.
But perhaps it takes these little deaths to start a new life (see: Jesus and Lazarus). And what is marriage but a chance at that—a fresh start, a blank page, a clean slate, and so forth?
And so—along with all the wedding coordination, the ordering of dresses and favors, the paying of the vendors, and duly noting of the rsvps—I’ve been cleaning out my emotional closet. And fuck yeah, it feels good. And right. I’ve been writing to people things I’ve wanted to say to them for years—not mean things, mind you, just words seeking final resolution. Things that I couldn’t say because of who I was and where I was at when the timing would have been relatively more “right.” In some cases, the answers are so obvious (as my wife explains, they didn’t pick me), but to be clear I’m not in any way writing romantically, hoping for some late-hour confession of love.
In fact, it is partially because of one person in my emotional past that it occurred to me to do such a thing. Oftentimes guys are exactly the ones to avoid any and all emotional confrontations, but one day out of the blue he wrote me seeking closure and offering friendship. I still count this as one of the most unexpected, most honest, and most awesome interactions I have had with any person. I deeply admire him for it.
I’m not trying to be a drama-mama. I’m settling and cleaning up the dust, not stirring the pot. I’m trying to start this marriage business off with an emotionally clean slate. To finish mixing all the metaphors I can think of, I’m not trying to muckrake, to muddy the waters with the past, I’m trying for once and for all to dredge the canal, to get rid of all that old shit with those people I think are worthy of starting over with. Afterall, in all cases, we’ve worked hard to piece together a friendship, so it should be something worth working at. What I’m saying is I am sorry, so just give me this one little thing (“I’m sorry too”) and we’ll throw the past away and go in a different direction—as genuine friends, friends that don’t keep secrets, friends that I love and understand whole-heartedly.
Despite the fact that time has passed, and we’ve each moved on, I still can’t pretend that what happened and didn’t happen, what was said and everything left unsaid, that all these things go away or get less awkward. What we went through sucked, and we were strange and mean to each other, and maybe he or maybe I deserved better or more … but we came through it and are the better for it.
Am I not supposed to say these things? Am I supposed to be such a blushing bride I spend all my hours looking forward, and not a one glancing back? I don’t doubt for a moment that I have made the right decision in choosing Dave to share my life with. He is my choice—heart, head, loins, and all points of interest in between. And I know this life we’ve been building slowly, inching toward together, inching toward a future, I know it’s good. BUT isn’t it true that your “bad” experiences, the ones that ripped you a new one so to speak, shape you just as much as the “good”? And anyway what is this fucking good/bad dichotomy I’ve got going? It’s never entirely one or the other. Afterall, “it takes the dust to have it polished” and so forth.
Well, I refuse to apologize for how I feel, and if I am truly friends with these persons now, I should be able to say how I feel out loud, because friends should tell the truth to each other and be able to deal with the fallout. I am proud of myself for demanding of those in stickier parts of my emotional past the things I would of any friend: truth and reconciliation. It’s been a real process to become a person able to demand reckoning. The person I was ten years ago would have never have put her feelings on par with another’s; call it Hawaiian manners, call it trickle-down Confucianism, call it what you want—I just never would have dreamed of doing so. And it’s taken the better part of these ten years to become someone who thinks she deserves more. I’m finally realizing the meaning of my own name (Mayumi), which translates from the Japanese to something like “truth is beauty and beauty is truth.” Fuck yeah.
And if they can’t step up to the plate? Maybe they aren’t worth it.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
a short note on how the grass grows.
Nota bene: In 2007, my friends (and friends of friends) have already enjoyed all of the following (in no particular order):
* the completion of a play
* having said play then picked up for production off-off Broadway
* an excellent first kiss (long "saved" for someone special)
* a chapter published in a book
* a not-too-painful or awful loss of virginity (accidently "saved" for no particular reason, except maybe a dearth of acceptable partners)
* the successful defense of a Ph.d. dissertation
* much-coveted acceptance into the Iowa Writer's Workshop
* change of jobs within same career TWICE in six months
* the healthy beginnings of dating, after a 3-year hiatus spent recovering from the bitchiest of all the world
* having their radio show picked up for national distribution
Q. What will I have accomplished this year?
A. Getting married.
Maybe it's just not my year. I suppose the thing to do is hunker down, get through the last of the wedding planning, come out of June successfully married, let the dust settle, and then roll up my sleeves and DO SOMETHING about it. But I know my dissatisfactions with life will continue to nag at me in the coming weeks, because we're coming up on my birthday, which is my own private time for new year's resolutions. Unfortunately, it's also usually a kind of depressing time, because in holding my life up to the light for closer examination, it almost always comes up lacking. I look and I think: Do I have a career or just a job? Is the low pay I receive all I deserve, or is it just that I am in the non-profit sector? When will I get out of the American Anthropologist and leave the non-profit sector for good? When will I feel truly appreciated for all the work I do--when I quit and my boss has to try to replace me with someone who will accept that vaguely insulting salary? Why am I not writing? Why am I not writing so much and so well that I am getting published? Why do I keep accepting projects for friends/acquaintances gratis when I do work hard/fast/well and deserve to be paid and, moreover, should be spending my extra time pursuing my own projects instead? Why can I lose weight but not the extra bit about my middle? Why can I never afford my life? Why have I not yet finished my Editing Certificate or pursued my MFA? Where can I possibly do so without uprooting myself from the life with Dave I've been desperately moving towards the last few years? Will I be able to live abroad as I want to so badly? When will we have kids? Do I want to have kids--yet? ever? When will I feel as settled here in CA as I did in New York? When will I have a true community of friends out here, rather than random persons here and there that don't mesh with each other? ... and so forth.
Sorry, Internet, for dumping on you, but what are my dreams if not both vivid and long-deferred? It seems some people (among them, me) can never just be happy with what they have. It's definite that even if I tucked one of these considerable feathers into my cap (publishing, a dissertation, for the love of god a different job), but I wasn't in a relationship (and a good one at that), I'd still be thinking about everyone else's much greener lawn. But I still think I'd be much happier if I could just change jobs (even careers).
Somebody send me a non-nonprofit job STAT!
* the completion of a play
* having said play then picked up for production off-off Broadway
* an excellent first kiss (long "saved" for someone special)
* a chapter published in a book
* a not-too-painful or awful loss of virginity (accidently "saved" for no particular reason, except maybe a dearth of acceptable partners)
* the successful defense of a Ph.d. dissertation
* much-coveted acceptance into the Iowa Writer's Workshop
* change of jobs within same career TWICE in six months
* the healthy beginnings of dating, after a 3-year hiatus spent recovering from the bitchiest of all the world
* having their radio show picked up for national distribution
Q. What will I have accomplished this year?
A. Getting married.
Maybe it's just not my year. I suppose the thing to do is hunker down, get through the last of the wedding planning, come out of June successfully married, let the dust settle, and then roll up my sleeves and DO SOMETHING about it. But I know my dissatisfactions with life will continue to nag at me in the coming weeks, because we're coming up on my birthday, which is my own private time for new year's resolutions. Unfortunately, it's also usually a kind of depressing time, because in holding my life up to the light for closer examination, it almost always comes up lacking. I look and I think: Do I have a career or just a job? Is the low pay I receive all I deserve, or is it just that I am in the non-profit sector? When will I get out of the American Anthropologist and leave the non-profit sector for good? When will I feel truly appreciated for all the work I do--when I quit and my boss has to try to replace me with someone who will accept that vaguely insulting salary? Why am I not writing? Why am I not writing so much and so well that I am getting published? Why do I keep accepting projects for friends/acquaintances gratis when I do work hard/fast/well and deserve to be paid and, moreover, should be spending my extra time pursuing my own projects instead? Why can I lose weight but not the extra bit about my middle? Why can I never afford my life? Why have I not yet finished my Editing Certificate or pursued my MFA? Where can I possibly do so without uprooting myself from the life with Dave I've been desperately moving towards the last few years? Will I be able to live abroad as I want to so badly? When will we have kids? Do I want to have kids--yet? ever? When will I feel as settled here in CA as I did in New York? When will I have a true community of friends out here, rather than random persons here and there that don't mesh with each other? ... and so forth.
Sorry, Internet, for dumping on you, but what are my dreams if not both vivid and long-deferred? It seems some people (among them, me) can never just be happy with what they have. It's definite that even if I tucked one of these considerable feathers into my cap (publishing, a dissertation, for the love of god a different job), but I wasn't in a relationship (and a good one at that), I'd still be thinking about everyone else's much greener lawn. But I still think I'd be much happier if I could just change jobs (even careers).
Somebody send me a non-nonprofit job STAT!
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