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Nov. 13th, 2008
I have not had a great couple of days. I'm tired and overworked and New York is angry and makes me look like a fool. Last night, I "corrected" a bakery I always go to on their math. Just one problem: I was wrong, and I apologized and said I was ashamed, folded in on myself and vowed that I would never ever go there again. Except, of course, because I have celiac disease, if I keep my word, I'll never get to eat another cupcake for as long as I live.
What really ticks me off though, other than the part where I'm a melodramatic idiot with a crappy genetic disease (which does, btw, include "rages" as a symptom -- I wonder if it also includes articulateness and sexiness because seriously? Keith Olbermann and I? Awesome celiacs! Anyway....) is how much I suspect people are enjoying this post right about now.
It's so real!
I can hear it already, and it pisses me the fuck off. Because the other stuff I post? Those sweeping stories and odd coincidences and the whole cadence and tone thing? They're not any less real. They're not made up, and they're not as goddamned studied as you think. That's really what my life is like. Even when it's shit. It's fucking luminous, and I loathe, loathe, loathe when people are impressed with me because crappy mundane shit happens, and it makes them feel more comfortable.
Seriously. How fucking weak is that? Like, I piss you off, you like the schadenfreude when some shit happens to me? Fine. I get that. But you like me and you just like me more when my life is smaller? Screw you.
Try as we might, we don't really get to pick and choose about people, we just get to pick and choose the parts we're going to pay attention to. All that other stuff is still there, and ignoring it sure the fuck doesn't make it go away.
I tell stories, and stories saved my life. Fictional characters held my hand when my father wouldn't, because he said I smelled funny. They told me to get up, dust myself off and stop crying when all my mother could do was express exasperation on the fact that her daughter had the temerity to look ugly in public. They held my hand when the plane took off, let me fit my face against their shoulders, caressed the the side of my neck as they whispered to me about hope, and apologized without an ounce of give in their voices before asking me to do the hardest things. Always.
My parents had no fucking idea what they were doing, but they gave me that. They gave me stories. They gave me people who could take care of me when they didn't know how or didn't want to. So I am not "more real" when I've had a bad day, when I've lost my patience, when I don't know how to show you the arc of things, when all I can do is snap obscenities or tell you I am tired or bored or having a crappy hair day.
That wasn't the life I was given. No one ever grounded me. Those things were never valued. And I know that makes me lost and remote and maybe false. But that is me, effortlessly and truly, and I am so sick of people rooting for me to be ordinary. I do that enough. All on my own, when I can't do math in a store and when I can't stop myself from hating myself over stupid mistakes. Don't root for that, even if it's a basis of connection. It's not worth it.
What really ticks me off though, other than the part where I'm a melodramatic idiot with a crappy genetic disease (which does, btw, include "rages" as a symptom -- I wonder if it also includes articulateness and sexiness because seriously? Keith Olbermann and I? Awesome celiacs! Anyway....) is how much I suspect people are enjoying this post right about now.
It's so real!
I can hear it already, and it pisses me the fuck off. Because the other stuff I post? Those sweeping stories and odd coincidences and the whole cadence and tone thing? They're not any less real. They're not made up, and they're not as goddamned studied as you think. That's really what my life is like. Even when it's shit. It's fucking luminous, and I loathe, loathe, loathe when people are impressed with me because crappy mundane shit happens, and it makes them feel more comfortable.
Seriously. How fucking weak is that? Like, I piss you off, you like the schadenfreude when some shit happens to me? Fine. I get that. But you like me and you just like me more when my life is smaller? Screw you.
Try as we might, we don't really get to pick and choose about people, we just get to pick and choose the parts we're going to pay attention to. All that other stuff is still there, and ignoring it sure the fuck doesn't make it go away.
I tell stories, and stories saved my life. Fictional characters held my hand when my father wouldn't, because he said I smelled funny. They told me to get up, dust myself off and stop crying when all my mother could do was express exasperation on the fact that her daughter had the temerity to look ugly in public. They held my hand when the plane took off, let me fit my face against their shoulders, caressed the the side of my neck as they whispered to me about hope, and apologized without an ounce of give in their voices before asking me to do the hardest things. Always.
My parents had no fucking idea what they were doing, but they gave me that. They gave me stories. They gave me people who could take care of me when they didn't know how or didn't want to. So I am not "more real" when I've had a bad day, when I've lost my patience, when I don't know how to show you the arc of things, when all I can do is snap obscenities or tell you I am tired or bored or having a crappy hair day.
That wasn't the life I was given. No one ever grounded me. Those things were never valued. And I know that makes me lost and remote and maybe false. But that is me, effortlessly and truly, and I am so sick of people rooting for me to be ordinary. I do that enough. All on my own, when I can't do math in a store and when I can't stop myself from hating myself over stupid mistakes. Don't root for that, even if it's a basis of connection. It's not worth it.