ya got the same now as before

my boss at the debt resolution network, a born crook, once dropped my call on purpose after I'd annoyed him.  I was on the phone with a client who'd called in with $80k debt and was ready that night to sign up and send a check.  if I closed him I'd get 15% more commission.  Adding hundreds in my head, I was determined not to let him talk to anyone else who might steal the close, and put the client on hold to run back and forth to my boss asking questions.  the forth time jim (boss) followed me back to my desk, asked for the receiver, and dropped it in its cradle. 

what did ya lose, he asked. 

I almost blubbered.  I counted out loud, babbling numbers and percentages.  he was gonna sign!  I was getting his credit card numbers!  he had 14 accounts!  the main line rang in the background.  one of the two dozen "financial analysts" sitting at desks behind me reached to the receiver, clicked their headset, and welcomed my client back.

do you remember her name?  no?  well, we can pick up right where she left off.  what's your name?  hmm...you're not in the system.  let me enter you in...and I'll take over as your personal analyst, no problem!

jim laughed.  ya didn't lose nothin you didn't already have.  ya see what I mean, you got the same now as before, ya got nothin.  that guy was askin too many questions anyway.  if ya don't close em, ya don't close em.  if ya're talking to em and 'air ready to sign, guess what.  tell em to show ya the money.  tell em to sign.  that guy wasn't signin.  he was wastin both ah times. wastin ya time!  how ya like that!  don't count those chickens.  cause they'll fly away!

are you there......?

back in the living room tonight watchin chris matthews with the fam, because my intake of media has been really screwed up lately.  I didn't even know keith olbermann got suspended from msnbc and that channel (along with fox of course) is always blaring in the living room.  This is what happens when you're confined by distance to people currently incapable of real communication, like my family.

I did however read somewhere recently that a TV show based on chelsea handler's life is being written.  This upsets me immensely.  I've always tried to like chelsea handler, especially because sara idolized her; some of the shit she says is funny, but there's just something about her that irritates and throws me off.  I read her whole "are you there vodka, it's me chelsea" book last week, without getting out of bed, and while it was a pleasant way to spend a morning wrapped in my comforter the book wasn't particularly funny or well-written.  there was absolutely no correlation or reference to the judy blume book she oh so cleverly adapted the title from, and there were only two themes throughout:  chelsea's sex feats and chelsea's father's awkward encounters with strangers.  she kept calling her dad shitballs or cocktits or some horrifying thing like that, which totally distracted from the insipidness of the book, not in a good way.  I have to respect chelsea because she's a single female entrepreneur, and also because you can tell she'd cut you if she had to.  but every time I Watch her on TV I feel like I'm watching a psychopath.  that's the impression chelsea handler gives me, and now she's getting a damn show.

I can't help but think that I should be gettin busy writing a book about my life.  justin bieber is writing an autobiography for god's sake so that should serve to inspire, if only out of shame.  but how do you start?  mama has always wanted me to write about my patients and the adventures I had but the most outrageous ones had to do with sara doing something illegal.  the time we worked the warped tour, 802 overnights.  sara stopping at rite aid to buy gin on the way to a nursing home.  sara in the back of the ambulance snorting coke.  sara stealing from patients.  the book I'd write would be a warning.

if I wrote a book about my ambulance adventures it would devolve into a book mostly about sara, how I rollicked with her for two years, fascinated, following, observing with fear and excitement.  I know I really am better off not being friends with her any more but I still think of her shameless badness with wistfulness.  she didn't care what anyone thought, even if they caught her red-handed in a lie or theft.  she was sharp and fearless and a master at manipulating people.  none of my friends liked her; even mama called her "troubled," and mama likes everyone/doesn't care about my friends enough to know what's going on with them anyway.   but (along with probably most young people) I'd never felt wholly understood by my peers, never had a best friend or even friends that weren't a little afraid of how "weird" I was, but sara and I completely understood each other.  her utter lack of morality sometimes made me wince, but we nevertheless shared a powerful, frightening secret when we were together--that nothing really mattered.  we were invincible.

I still feel that way some of the time, that nothing really matters when you really, really get down to it.  when I'm doing something that inspires just a small amount of self-pride, like eating salads every day and exercising.  as I'm munching broccoli or gasping to catch my breath running up a hill I think, who cares.  who cares if I just don't drive to mcdonald's and buy a cheeseburger.  who cares if I sit around all day watching tv.  who cares if I waste, if I don't recycle, if I booze and do drugs every day and stay up til 4 am every night.  why not?  I'd probably having more fun and I'd probably be dead before I hit 40.  are the things we do because they're good and right and healthy any more meaningful than the bad things we might enjoy so much more?  who's watching, who cares?

to thine enemy be true

I'm sittin on the new couch in the living room next to mama and wes, both reading.  dad, sunken into his recliner, looks like a little sausage in pudding swaddled in electric blankets.  he's switching back and forth between hardball and the glenn beck show.  according to beck, a loaf of bread will cost $27 in 2011.  I'm a firm believer of "garbage in garbage out," meaning I wouldn't watch glenn beck if someone offered me free loaves for life, but dad says it's helpful to know the enemy. 

because I'm getting ready to buy a new computer, one that can maybe launch missiles and make me breakfast, I've been consolidating and organizing my hard drives.  what a lot of work.  do I really need lil wayne's complete discography or the first two seasons of true blood in 720p?  there have been a few nice surprises, though, like this little gem of a book on getting the woman of your dreams I found in a random ebook folder.  I have no idea where it came from.  of course I wanted to hate it when I came upon it but now I can't stop reading it.  it's actually called bed2wed and it's a million times better than helen fisher's why him-why her negotiator-explorer love crap.  even though some random woman at the grocery store last month, after asking about my rutgers sweatshirt, started gushing about how much she loves helen fisher and how "right she is."  I was tempted to say that dr. fisher is just the next overrated john gray, and I don't see a wedding band on your bony old hand, but she wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise.

if I'd known about it I might have told her about bed2wed.  especially my favorite part thus far, a breakdown of the "four types" of women.  as bed2wed is a book for men there are sadly no multiple choice questions to help pigeonhole myself into a type, though I might be furthest from "light" (my favorite type if I had to choose, because they're usually simple-minded and easy to take advantage of).  here are these four types of woman that, by the end of this book, self-respecting male readers are supposed to find, bed, and wed:

Fire – she’s passionate, emotional, confident, brash. She’ll bust your balls, in both a fun and challenging way. You must BE a brighter fire! You must outmaneuver her, change topics, be bolder than she is, more aggressive. If she starts the sexual innuendo, you MUST notch it up! If she’s a candle, you’re a hearth. If she’s a hearth, you’re a bonfire!

Light - she’s sweet, loving, kind, good, idealistic.  This one’s easy. Be sure to convey how much you love your parents and children and animals and your friends. Be positive and optimistic about people. See the best in people and never make fun of them.

Earth – she does yoga. Eats nuts and berries, probably has a big dog.  Easy again. You have to be a more powerful force of nature than she is. If she likes to hike, you like to run.  If she likes bike rides, you like mountain biking. If she likes to camp, you like to wilderness camp. In other words, you are the FORCE OF NATURE that she is seeking.

Ice – she’s intellectual, reserved, analytical. She is going to study every nuance of your speech and person. For her, you have to PREPARE. You have to be sharp, your details precise.  She is going to study every word you say, so be prepared to discuss every word.  Only, here’s the trick – never “defend” what you say. Rather use each questions to tell a funny story, to expand outward from the “testing” questions she will ask.  You have to be as analytical of her as she is of you. Casually showcase your acuity up front. If you can move her attention back to her, the sooner she will stop examining you and start FEELING you. If you want Ice, you must be prepared to answer her questions, shift the topic to her, then get her into her positive feeling and imagining states.  Her testing process will be particularly rigorous and intellectualized. You must answer swiftly and satisfactorily – otherwise she won’t trust you. But don’t answer for long. Help her escape her analytical mind and she will be subconsciously grateful and settle into her soft femininity. Which is where you want her to be!

yes!  all women want is to be settled into soft femininity.  it beats nagging, picking up dirty socks, and wondering if he's really being faithful.  I love how ice needs a whole paragraph of explanation whereas earth is relegated to nuts, berries, and a big dog.  who really reads these things?

after bed2wed, the prospect of dating guys becomes even more terrifying.  I'm afraid of what's out there and the fantastically boring potential of wasting a night I could otherwise be reading or decoupaging or watching glenn beck on some guy who turns out to be racist or sexist or plain dumb.  When I was a secreta--err, administrative assistant at leed years ago I thought I'd hit the jackpot with chad, a 6'7 musclebound ups delivery guy who spent ten minutes every other day complimenting me and trying to flirt, even on casual fridays when I usually wore combat bdus and a huge paisley men's buttondown.  he told me to "dress nice" for our date.  I should have known right then from his omission of a suffix we weren't compatible.

he picked me up in a monster truck with 8 wheels.  everything was black, even the lights.  I was miserable in a skirt but figured the looks we'd get as such an elegant couple would be worth it at whatever fine dining establishment he'd chosen for us.  then we pulled into olive garden.

unfazed, I ate as much as I could since I predicted chad would not tolerate a doggy bag in his monster truck.  we did get looks, too, though they were more peculiar than admiring.  despite lackluster dinner conversation I was gloriously full and happy once back in his truck.  I reached for the seat lever to recline and digest in comfort, apparently indicating to chad my makeout readiness.  "let me help you with that," he murmured, sprawling across me to grab the seat lever himself.  I was flung into a supine position.  the ghost of the red onions I'd had several helpings of during dinner was a terrible presence between us, but chad, undeterred, began attacking my face with his tongue.  I might have tolerated it if only chad, past niceties and apropos of nothing, had not chosen to confide in me right then and there how many bitch sluts (his phrase) he'd dated, and how nice it was to finally be with just a regular girl.  chad obviously hadn't read bed2wed, where it clearly states never to tell a girl she's "regular."  I slapped him.  we drove home and I never saw him again.

all right, I didn't really slap him, I told him I thought I was going to throw up, which was partially true.  when we got home mama, bless her heart, was outside shaking rugs off the deck and so chad was forced to merely peck me goodbye as I bounded out of the car.  I think he called a few times after that but of course I never called back.  as far as I know he's married by now to a regular girl who, a year in, hopefully turned into the biggest bitch slut of his life.

I wonder if she's light, ice, earth or fire.

It is as though the space between us were time

 I can't lie. it's been really hard moving back to ct and being with my family every day.  no one listens to me!  I've gone very suddenly from well-respected peer to sneering snot-nosed kid.  a role I can grudgingly take on, because as mama says, it's of prime importance--our JOBS now, really--for everyone to be happy. but everyone is not happy.  wes is absolutely apathetic and I've actually become uncomfortable around him.  we awkwardly say good morning and night but it seems he wants to be around me as little as possible.  of course I'm interpreting it that way and he's just busy working on his demo reel (even though while he's "working" he's also streaming the entirety of arrested development on netflix.com).  still, his aloofness hurts.  I wish I had a sister!

I think that's the main reason I started the blog, under the guise of the public sphere!--to have a sounding board; to be heard by a friend.  even if it's just me listening (which let's face it, who doesn't love to hear themselves prattle intelligently if so capable).  the main reason it's so hard to be back here near my parents and brother, because family isn't friends.  not when they're going through hard times.  though misery loves company, grief is not a unifier but a divider.  we're cautious around each other, but cautious and rude alternately.  mama's very personality has changed.  she doesn't laugh anymore and she's never really paying attention to anything.  "I get really scared sometimes," she told me today over a few jittery bites of bagel.  "we've been together 42 years!  that's most of my life!  I know I'll have enough money, a place, my family, but there's going to be something missing that I'm so afraid to conceptualize it sends me into a panic."  okay she didn't say ALL that exactly, but she would have if she hadn't started crying.  she cries every day.  sometimes I find myself actually getting annoyed and thinking, "why doesn't she try to be more positive and enjoy each day that she's got left with him."  I'm a terrible person, I know.  dad says I lost my ability to sympathize after years of watching people suffer.  doesn't that seem like the opposite of what would happen?  nevertheless I am sick to death of suffering and the sympathy it brings.  I've cried over complete strangers and now dad's dying and about that all I feel is slight confusion.

I still find myself on the verge of tears with no provocation sometimes (though not nearly as often as mama).  not because dad's dying, but because being back here, now that we're all together, I can see that we're not really much of a family.  we don't know each other and we don't care to.  we've been hurt, scorned, abused by one another and none of us is capable, I guess, of letting it go.  dad doesn't see it this way at all.  he always says I'm "unhealthily preoccupied with feeeelings."  maybe I am, but I'm also a chick, so I have license.

One thing that that will stick out in memory after he's gone is the time last week mama sent me up to his office to leave some form on his desk.  he had gone downstairs to watch tv, and as I came up to his desk I saw he was working on a paper.  I don't remember what book or author it was (probably faulkner).  it was about familial ties, a father's ability to recognize his son, his wife, etc., and form appropriate bonds, or something.  I read a few paragraphs but couldn't get interested.  the irony was too great.  all his life dad has researched and written and taught on hidden narratives and complexities in human relationships--family relationships--yet he nearly has none.  dad could have maybe specialized in american writers, or 15th century texts, or poetry, whatever, but buddhism and faulkner: his two main touchstones for 38 years as a professor.  fucked up familial ties and the path to enlightenment.  really dad.  but would you expect a psychologist/psychiatrist to have a perfect family?

I suppose my expectations are too high.

death stamped his feet when daddy died
death laughed at us, mom cried
I felt much less the pain than that of love denied,
and so replied
death finds us reasons for resolution within ourselves.