At what point do you throw the whiskey out the window and bellow (to no one in particular), "I'll abide no more of this tomfoolery. I'm moving to Montana!" Question mark.
Just do it. Just saying?
How do you come to that decision? What pinnacle of despair must one reach? Hypothetically, of course. Pinnacles being scarce among the sandstone and basaltic cliffs of this coast.
If I were to chart it out... but F. is opposed to time lines and plans. I could learn from this. He knows how plans make God's trigger finger jumpy.
I, however, like to lay out plans and can get easily carried away on a daydream, a detailed unraveling into the next 20 years where (on this very day, decades hence) I am scheduled to be sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch that simultaneously overlooks mountains and oceans while also being located in the remote middle of the United States. If all goes according to plan. I believe I also will be wearing burlap sacks and carrying a crossbow. Again, if all goes according to plan.
I'm baffled by the steps that lead up to a decision. I feel like I've stumbled into most things I've done and realized only later a decision was made. Most plans fall apart (God's got his revolver in the "at ready" position that scares police officers). Or they change direction in a way fit to give you whiplash. The plans I make are actually terrible, but they stack up nice (confession: I was once addicted to playing Tetris) and they do make sense. Truly.
I hate making decisions because I always choose the wrong line at a grocery store: behind the crazy coupon lady, next to the man in the kimono who pays for everything with pennies and rusted nails, in front of the meth addict on a bad day, with the only cash register operated by a foot pedal and a monkey. Clearly, I should not be entrusted with making decisions. I will step into a mess. But it's this sort of attitude, this fear of risk and change, that makes it possible to turn gray with age before you're thirty-five. I'm sure it also leads to kleptomania, hygiene issues and the inability to remember how to spell hygiene without computer spell check tools.
Stuff happens. Or, to be even more passive, incidents have been said to occur in altered ways.
---
Can I get more vague? Ironic since only this morning I called out a police person for uttering something along the lines of, "We are working to establish a format in such a way that, down the road, we can better understand how to approach the situation and further our investigation." I started cackling once he said the word "format."
I'm trying to figure out how to lead an interesting life, having recently realized I will die (while I realize it, I still don't believe it). My mortality is like math: something I acknowledge must exist, but also something I can't ever really comprehend. There's so much out there I could do. I'm tired of doing things and staying places because it's comfortable (and therefore easy). Complacency will not be tolerated. Beatings will continue until morale improves. Etc.
Just a thought.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
all my friends are talking about leaving, about leaving
To Mrs. P
My sister is moving to a tropical island paradise where she will languish in a life of untold drudgery and tears until she returns home years later, a warped and twisted ghost of the lovely woman she used to be. Or that's one version.
Also, my sister is moving. She is packing right now. I am not helping, but sometimes I say things like, "You don't need a pillow, just roll up a sweatshirt." And I'm reminded again how we're different people. I, in my mind (repeat: in my mind), aspire to a monk-like simplicity full of physical discomfort, one pair of dirty jeans and "putting up with stuff." L. is not the opposite of this. I.e. unbridled consumerism tempered by nothing but the availability of money -- she's not like that at all. But she does give me that Look (kind of like the Tone we're always complaining my dad takes with us during serious discussions. He denies this. Likely, L. denies the Look). That Look says to me that I'm trying to get attention by being Noble and I should stop because it's Annoying. Probably she's right.
Now we're eating PEZ candies from a Thor PEZ dispenser. I have caught one flung at my head. Now Sara has arrived in her (I will call it) sexy sexy blue dress. She has allowed me to call it this.
I'm on vacation this week, which means I squashed two week's worth of work into last week to justify not working today through Friday. Except that's a lie, because I worked today. So far though it's the best Monday I can remember. I'm trying to plan a wilderness camping trip and (in my mind, again) I plan to leave for it tomorrow. I also plan to drag at least one brother kicking and screaming along with me... mostly for protection against wildlife that might otherwise be tempted to chomp on my soft neck and flay the flesh from my bones. I need to present a more threatening front.
Here's how I figure it. Two grown people: threat level is a screaming red with a hint of orange. Safety level: pristine. One grown woman alone: dull gray, like the color of my pickled intestines on a bear's mantelpiece next his other kill trophies. Safety level: shot to hell. Or, if you prefer, heck.
My sister is moving to a tropical island paradise where she will languish in a life of untold drudgery and tears until she returns home years later, a warped and twisted ghost of the lovely woman she used to be. Or that's one version.
Also, my sister is moving. She is packing right now. I am not helping, but sometimes I say things like, "You don't need a pillow, just roll up a sweatshirt." And I'm reminded again how we're different people. I, in my mind (repeat: in my mind), aspire to a monk-like simplicity full of physical discomfort, one pair of dirty jeans and "putting up with stuff." L. is not the opposite of this. I.e. unbridled consumerism tempered by nothing but the availability of money -- she's not like that at all. But she does give me that Look (kind of like the Tone we're always complaining my dad takes with us during serious discussions. He denies this. Likely, L. denies the Look). That Look says to me that I'm trying to get attention by being Noble and I should stop because it's Annoying. Probably she's right.
Now we're eating PEZ candies from a Thor PEZ dispenser. I have caught one flung at my head. Now Sara has arrived in her (I will call it) sexy sexy blue dress. She has allowed me to call it this.
I'm on vacation this week, which means I squashed two week's worth of work into last week to justify not working today through Friday. Except that's a lie, because I worked today. So far though it's the best Monday I can remember. I'm trying to plan a wilderness camping trip and (in my mind, again) I plan to leave for it tomorrow. I also plan to drag at least one brother kicking and screaming along with me... mostly for protection against wildlife that might otherwise be tempted to chomp on my soft neck and flay the flesh from my bones. I need to present a more threatening front.
Here's how I figure it. Two grown people: threat level is a screaming red with a hint of orange. Safety level: pristine. One grown woman alone: dull gray, like the color of my pickled intestines on a bear's mantelpiece next his other kill trophies. Safety level: shot to hell. Or, if you prefer, heck.
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