The Curious Narcissist: January 2011

So it’s been a while.
And a thousand starts have come into my head, flitting through, because I want to do this again (I do) but at the same time I worry all these things. Like, what if I’m just boring? Or what if I suck at writing? What if I have nothing to say? What if I type so fast that my hands catch on fire and then after that my computer catches on fire and I lose all my pictures and papers and then my university calls and is like “uh.. we had a tragic and strange mishap, we need to see all your papers again or we’re going to revoke your degree.” And I’m like “I can’t I was blogging and my hands caught on fire and I lost all my stuff and all my backups got eaten by a wildebeest” and they are like “You blog? Minus 10 points for Gryffindor.” Or whatever they say to let you know that they think you are a nerd and also that you are about to lose something you value. Except by something, I mean pretty much everything. Because then I lose my degree and therefore my job and also because I lost my pictures and music nobody remembers they are friends with me and I have nothing to comfort me as I go slowly crazy and end up alone until I am befriended by a kind but smelly wall named Mike until they put up a NO LOITERING sign and then I’m really all alone in the world.

Well here I am, months later, trying again because I think this new job will provide the opportunity for many amusing stories. As for catching up, suffice to say, after leaving the glory of the twenty third year of my existence, I hit a rough patch. It was one of those times where my weaknesses followed me around wherever I went. Creepy crawly ones would climb in places and I would have to turn over my shoes and knock them out before putting them on. Large, heavy ones would sit in my chair and laugh as I would grunt and heave them out of the way so I could sit down. Small, impish ones carved little thrones for themselves out of the erasers in my pencils where they would sit leaning wildly left and right and would compose operas which they would sing for me all day long at the very top of their tiny voices that were so clever that I found myself listening to them. Soft, furry ones would replace my pillows with themselves and whisper to me in my sleep. Every surface, every room, every silence. There. Mustached and tweed hatted, they opened the doors for me until I found myself thanking them. Thank you. Thank you being here. Thank you for reminding me of my faults. Thank you. And then, as I walked away, they would tsk “look at her, thanking us. So insecure, that one. Never used to be like that. What happened? Doesn’t appreciate what she has. No sir.” And in this state of mind I moved to one of the only cities I never wanted to live. Columbus.

There was a moment, a day, when my friend Tommy almost had me that Columbus was a decent city by showing me a fantastic time. In the words of the immortal Sam DeLong, sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish between a place you like and people you liked and times you enjoyed. Guess what, Tommy? My first week in Columbus defeated even your awesome day.

(side note: having to compare itself to Scotland may have helped)

The first week of working in Columbus I got lost every single day. Every. Single. Day. Mostly the kind of lost where I knew where I was and where I wanted to be but I would go around in circles because the on and off ramps aren’t intuitive (like you can’t get right back on where you got off)… and also because I had already turned into the Incredible Hulk. Now, I like to think that, in general, I’m not a super uptight person. Getting lost is one of the things that grates on my every nerve and causes me to scream cuss words and bite chunks out of the steering wheel and spit them at passing drivers. I remember one time when I had my temporary permit. We were lost, I think in Kansas City, at night, and I was doing something wrong so my mother (whose Achilles heel was definitively teaching children, particularly me, to drive) was yelling and grabbing the steering wheel. My younger brother, who at this moment was as punk ass a thirteen year old as ever existed, was in the back making gross accusations about my total incompetence as a human in general based on the fact that we were not where we were meant to be yet. I don’t know where my dad was at this point. What I do remember is what happened next. Right then, right when I am on the very brink of hyperventilating and mental collapse. My sister, sitting directly behind me, started giggling. And then, she started tapping my head. For no reason other than to join in the fun. And that’s how she lost her finger.

Do I begrudge them? No. They are hilarious, and probably the reason I can say that I'm not super uptight. They tapped it out of me. At the time, it was traumatic.

However when I get lost while driving, my subconscious, I think, takes me back to this moment and I just start raging. Which is why all the one way streets in Columbus make my eyes turn red and my foot turns to lead and I forget the whole “middle of the lane” principle and hit every mailbox. To clarify, I don’t find one way streets confusing, merely frustrating, since at this point I'm usually at a state of anger where I've eaten the directions I printed out earlier that day by way of punishment to them.

Now of course things are a little easier. I can get to work and home and I know that I live west of the city but work east of it and that the Hilltop (where I live) and Franklinton are separate places. I like my job, and I’m good at it. I want to stay creative and positive, and if I were to venture a guess it’s not the big things that I think are going to wear me down. I think it’s slowly raising my voice more and more until I become a person that yells. I don’t want to be a person that yells. I have opinions about yelling at kids, you know? And I think it’s those things, the things where you slack off on the things that are actually important (loving people) in lieu of the things that feel important (programming).

So yeah. I guess in the end, it’s all about priorities. Meaning that I really want to get a good set of friends here, because I miss Scotland, just like I once missed Ohio, but someone really awesome and smart once told me that it’s difficult to distinguish between a place you like and people you liked and times you enjoyed. Last Saturday I had some fabulous people come up and regale me with their words and smiles and it reminded me of this good truth in the best way. And I think if I can borrow more words, that I can get by with a little help from my friends. Or, if you prefer: I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.

tl;dr version: references to me turning into the Incredible Hulk when I get lost. what should contain an apology for being a pity party of one the past few months.

The Curious Narcissist

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

getting lost?

Why it's been so long.