My Cavalier Approach to Human Decency

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Without checking, I think it was in the last entry that I mentioned a conversation I had with Elorza about whether or not I thought of myself as a writer, and what it meant to me to be one. Tonight, I had another conversation with Dan in which I informed him of one of the little secrets I am less and less compelled to share with the world: that I recently wrote took the time to commit one of my many story ideas to paper, went so far as to hire an editor to work on it with me with aspirations of publishing it, and then, just as I was putting the finishing touches on it and quite by coincidence, found out about a contest that seemed so custom-tailored to my story that I sent it off without a doubt in the world it would win.

It didn't, of course, but that's old story. The one we're talking about, the one I wrote, well, that's still fairly new. And so life, inevitably, goes on.

I'm finding I do very poorly with failure-- so poorly, in fact, that it's beginning to make me question if it was fear of failure, all along, that kept me from going out and accomplishing all that it was so evident I could. This isn't something I ever suspected of myself. (I am taking a moment to imagine, at this point, my loyal readers-- the ones that are a thing of my fantasy, who have read every word of this blog since it's wailing, bloody birth and have grown to know me better than I know myself-- scoffing. "Linda!" They laugh, shocked but in a good-natured tone, "How could you not have seen this, all of these years? Poor, sweet girl.") Indeed, I have thought of those quotes by all the great minds, too many to name-- that failures are merely steps on a path to success, that there are no mistakes-- as gospel, never did I question the wisdom. I guess this kind of weakness is the worst, the kind you have no concept of. I suppose, then, that by the same logic as "failures are successes", I should think of this revelation as nothing more than opportunity. I, Linda Hildonen, am a not a coward, but one who has been presented with the opportunity to overcome cowardice!

Is it me, or is it getting a little hot in here?

The conversation with Dan culminated, of course, in his insistance that I continue to seek to get the story-- a picture book manuscript-- published. I assured him that I never had any intention of giving up, that never had even a wisp of the idea crossed my mind, and it was true, of course.

Unless you count the sound of my heart as it beats out "give up, give up, give up." with an growing Poe-like intensity.

The first time I submitted a picture book manuscript to a publisher, officially, was in elementary school. I had written a story-- a horrendous story about sledding down the wrong side of a hill-- with absolutely no concept that it was utter crap. No one had told me it was bad-- no one had any reason to, hell, I was....seven? Eight? They all told me it was good, and it was, for something written for someone in my age. I was a smart girl, and a good writer, and that much I was always confident of. Sure, I was vastly unpopular. I was wearing hand-me-down clothes and my hair was unkempt, and yeah, I probably smelled funny. But I was smart, and I knew that, they couldn't take that away from me. I guess they all assumed, though, I was smart enough to realize that, realistically, it was unpublishable. I wasn't.

I waited and waited for my claim to come in the mail. I spent the time doodling pictures of my literary agent-- he had tacky, hollywood personality and a red convertible that he referred to as "Beaut." Among other things I didn't understand, I thought that writers got the same sort of glamorous treatment that movie stars got. The future always holds so much when you have no clue.

My response came, quite unexpectly, two full years later. In the letter, a sweet woman praised my talent and suggested that I try submitting my story to a magazine featuring work written by children. I never did. By the time I received the letter, my age was in the double-digits, and I knew already that the story had been crap.

I may have been dejected for a while, I don't remember. What I remember was my mother telling me "You've gotten your first rejection from a real publishing company! You're an official writer now!" And we celebrated.

I bragged about that rejection for months, about my status. Never did I think of it as a failure-- I was too smart, too golden, too young for that. Honestly, at that point in my life, I never thought failure was an option for me. No one mentioned it; no one was worried. Never had even a wisp of the idea crossed my mind. When my heart beat, it said "You will, you will, you will."

I think about the progress I've made, the way I've struggled away from that smelly girl in the hand-me-downs. Maybe I've traded one brand of confidence for another. Maybe I've just lost it all around. It feels, though, like I could stand to get a little bit of her back. I could handle the unpopularity, I think, if only to get some spark of that sureness, that bright-eyed naivety in the face of tomorrow. Sometimes it seems I have nothing in common with that little girl at all.

I shouldn't be so hard on myself, though. I still smell pretty bad.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 1:04 AM

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Two responses to my call for writing prompts, questions and requests have come in so far: The first is from the young Dan B., who submitted the following last week:

"I find myself, nowadays, defining myself by myself more and more, even as I believe it is the groups that I am and am not a part of that define me. I've yet to figure this one out, but what do you think defines a person in the grand scheme of things? Is it their actions, their beliefs, or is it what groups they're a part of, like I'm thinking? While we're on it, how do you define yourself?"

Oh, Dan.

In all of the thought that I've given to this question since I've read it, I've been finding myself unable to really commit to a message. I'm reminded of a conversation I had, a few months ago, wherein Elorza, in an bit of an ornery mood, I thought, was challenging my own definitions of myself in the context of being a writer. He asked if I thought of myself as a writer, then was somewhat angrily incredulous when I answered with a simple "yes." He pushed for more definition-- if I was so brazen as to call myself a writer (when he did not dare to call himself one), then what was a writer to me, and what was it about myself that qualified myself as one? What accomplishments did I have, what passion?

I found the whole conversation annoying, really, but not nearly so maddening as he seemed to find it when each of my answers refused to give in to his demands for specificity and reasoning. I tried to explain my preference towards not clinging to a set definition for concepts that mean many things to many different people, but this was seen as a cop out. His definition of a writer, it seemed as he went on, must have been one who is unafraid to define things in the world in which they live, making me seem, somehow, the hypocrite of the conversation.

Had I been willing to give in to what he wanted, I might have told him that it was my willingness to put myself out there, to commit my thoughts and feelings to words and then submit them to the judgment of whoever should care to read that makes me a writer. But that, then, would invalidate all those who write purely for themselves, as part of an inner dialogue or self-exploration, or for whatever other reasons a person chooses to write privately. And while I've never had any particular respect for that kind of writer, I've never had any particular disdain for them, either.

But that doesn't answer Dan's question.

I'm reminded, also, of a friend I had who thought herself a virgin who was particularly incensed when I told her I didn't think of her as one. My explanation --that while she thought of a virgin as someone who had never engaged in coitus or broken their hymen, I thought of is as someone who had never had sex in any form-- did little to comfort her; neither did my insistance that she ignore my definition. I told her that I wasn't judging her, that I had always known the facts as they had happened and simply because those facts translated, in my mind, to a different status, that status was basically irrelevant to who she really was, to her true definition, if you will. She then enlisted the help of others to help win me over, so sure she was of her own virginity. Everyone else involved felt the same way: a virgin was someone who had never had vaginal sex. I tried to agree to disagree. It wasn't enough for them.

Thinking that their definition was the most popular, and therefor convenient, when I was asked many years later if I was a virgin (after my first encounters with oral sex), I said "yes". The person who was asking me, not the brightest needle in the haystack, then responded with "You've never even kissed a guy??" I didn't really get the relation, but I moved past it and told him "No, I've kissed people, and I've had oral sex. I've just never had vaginal sex." "Oh," He said. "Then you're not a virgin." "Okay." I said. Because it was.

My definition of what a virgin was didn't change who I was. I knew what I'd done and what I hadn't.

But that doesn't answer Dan's question, either.

Dan, there are a lot of things I could say about this. What you've asked is what defines a person "in the grand scheme of things" so I guess that's easier to answer: The grand scheme of things, as I would define it, refers to the universe, existence, and on that level, I guess one person doesn't matter that much. On that level, an individual person gets no more definition than any other individual person. To the universe, person equals person, just the way that, to us, no one grain of sand has any defining characteristics to tell it apart from any other grain of sand.

But that's all philosophical B.S., so let's narrow "the grain scheme of things" to a level where it's most practical in this context: the world, the people in it. To the vast majority of the people in the world, Dan, you are defined by a the groups that you are in, from a somewhat statistical view: You are male, you are young, you are white, you are from North America. But that's not very interesting either.

So let's get a little closer: what defines you to the people you will meet, or who will know you in one way or another. In fact, let's start with what defines a person to themselves.

What I find most interesting is this: a person generally defines themselves by their thoughts, or their beliefs, as you mentioned. Within yourself, there is this whole world of self-interest. Every thing that runs through your head is part of you, as you see yourself. Every feeling, every question, every moment of consciousness contributes to your own definition of yourself, and in that way, you can see yourself a million ways: A philosopher, a poet. A person of great compassion, a person of endless depth.

But to everyone else who will ever know you, you are only defined by your actions. No one hears your thoughts or feels your feelings, they can only see what you do with your time. True, the action can be as simple as speaking your thoughts or writing them down, but don't forget how much is lost in translation, and, with that in mind, consider devoting some of your energies to something less self-serving.

Dan has asked a question, in his questioning way-- I've always defined him as a person of curiousity, a person who looks for answers. And I've answered it with my opinions, and I've always assumed people thought of me as someone with numerous and complicated opinions. What other actions are people defining us with? Good or bad? Or, as is most likely, totally mediocre? We should all remember, perhaps, to tread lightly in this, or, more aptly, to choose carefully when to really stomp and march. Ultimately, that tender knowledge of ourselves that makes us endlessly sympathetic of our actions and inactions, that's all us.

I honestly have so much more I could say about this, Dan, but how much is saying it really worth? Originally, I was going to go with a diatribe about how there is one of two groups a person can fit into that will truly define his life: the happy people, and the sad people. But I'm not sure if I believe it or not, if that's a group that you're in, or just another set of actions. Anyway, as a writer-- and I am one-- that's not the thought I wanted to commit myself to today. Too much of that to get lost in translation.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 6:01 PM

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

It's not so much that I've lost interest in writing, as much as I seem to be having a temporary dry spell with regards to self-interest. Not something I could have seen coming. Heaven help me should this trend continue, and force me to develop world views, and opinions, and, god help me, convictions.

Anyway, I feel for the dusty facade of this page, the wistful ache of my fingers against the keyboard, the stagnance of my once ever-evolving craft. So, I ask of you, my loyal readers, and those of you who are here all-too-infrequently for reasons that are all-too-obvious, be my muse!

I am, as of today, taking requests. Demands, even. Give me a prompt, a theme, a keyword. Ask me a question. Challenge me. Whatever you want. Only the absolute worst will be ignored...in some cases, mocked.

Leave them as a comment, or e-mail me at SuedeCaramel@gmail.com.

On with it!

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 12:34 AM

Thursday, February 07, 2008

So it's been a while. I'm still here.

Hard, as of late, to get into the groove of writing about my life. So. Let's do a music meme.

Put your music player (iTunes, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, etc.) on Shuffle or Random mode, press Play, and list your favorite line or verse from the first 10 songs that it plays. Then get your friends to guess the artist and song title of each lyric. Fun! (You can skip instrumental-only songs, but no skipping of the embarrassing songs!)

Okay. I will. You guys gotta guess, okay?

1. I want all the self-conscious girls who try to hide who they are with make-up. (How sad that this it the first one that came up, it's an okay song, not at all deep. That's my favorite line by default.)

2. I'm running out of reasons for sharing and sometimes I can't think of one.

3. I had opinions that didn't matter, I had a brain that felt like pancake batter.

4. You were my only weakness for years and years and years.
(These last two really show more about how Zack has influenced my music choices more than anything else. Specifically, I put the songs of his I kinda liked on my iPod so that I would grow more comfortable with them, and then he'd hear me listening to them and say things like "I didn't know you liked this song.")

5. I'm too proud to beg for your attention and your friendship and your time, so you can come and get it from now on.

6. I promise I won't squander your gaze.

7. I'll follow you in, I know you can't swim when you've been dead a hundred years.

8. She's in love with the world, but sometimes these feelings can be so misleading.

9. So if I capsize in your thigh's high tide, B-5, you sunk my battleship.

10. I wish that I could cry, fall down on my knees, find a way to lie, 'bout a home I'll never see.

I kinda find it impressive how many of those songs weren't emo. Not my favorites, though. Too bad. Because if there's anything this blog, and the world at large really, is lacking, it's insight to the emotional junk drawer that is my head.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 12:41 AM

Friday, December 14, 2007

“What do you write?” My coworker asked at the register as when I told her I had come to buy the notebook to fulfill my yen to write.

“Uh, selfish, self-serving, self-interested prose.” I tell her. She replies with something snappy, but it would be out of character for me to remember what it was.

The yen to write was more a yen to write here at work; to write in public. This, I have always loved, a combination of my two passions—writing, and appearing deeper than I really am. It’s been said of me, when I am writing, that I have a certain aura, that I am different and special and everyone notices—said, of course, by only one person, and only one time, but as it confirmed a secret lifelong suspicion of mine, I will presume he was saying what everyone else was thinking. Ah, the clarity of drunkenness.

So I wanted not just to write, but to be seen writing. To spark the curiosity of others, be on their minds. When I write, I glow. I am focused and intense. I am mysterious and beautiful. I am literate and captivating and ten pounds thinner. Truly, this is the real me.

Thusly, it’s been so disconcerting that I haven’t written in months. This had occurred to me recently, at first with no real concern to it, but increasingly, I realized the urge to write was as absent as the words themselves. This had me feeling, sometimes palpably, nervous. I did not want to write—had my many flighty ambitions spread me so thin that I had finally abandoned the one thing I’d remained true to for years? The one thing that had outlasted every fleeting phase and get-rich-quick scheme, trumped my overdeveloped need for instance gratification and, largely unintentionally, developed over the years into the acutely honed skill that it is, so evidently, today.

Despite this fear, it’s not really accurate to say that the dormant lust for narrative had suddenly awakened within me. Indeed, with very occasional exception, there are only three great motivators in my life: self-loathing, avoidance, and the desire to eliminate split-ends.

In truth, I had gone shopping after work, for lack of reason to go home, and I’d picked out several pairs of size ten pants to try on. Old Navy would have you believe that you are one of three types of woman-- a diva, a flirt,or a sweetheart—and that this classification is in direct correlation with the placed you prefer your pants to rest on your hips. More accurately in correlation to that preference, to my mind, is your ability to accept your actual pant size: you may, in personality, be a diva, but if you are a size ten who fancies herself a size eight, you will not be leaving the store with low-rise jeans. As for myself, in size tens that would have confirmed my status as a mid-rise flirt, a daunting and important decision made through the process of elimination, I looked like the half-stuffed sausage that the butcher forgot. It would seem that in the months of lethargy that have crept slowly in between me and my former, fitness-driven self, I have slipped past my last-chance-for-self-acceptance size of ten. All evidence seems to indicate that I am now a size…oh, I can’t even say it. But it rhymes with "shame."

Faced with a dilemna such as this, a wise woman corrects herself, asks the clerk for the next size up, buys the pants that flatter her body for what it is, and revels in the self-confidence of a real woman. Without that wisdom, a rookie mistake is made: she buys the too-small pants anyway, having no doubt in her naïve mind that within a month or two, she will work down to her preferred size. And the new pants will act as incentive!

How many times have I made that mistake? But no more! I bought a shirt.

The newfound knowledge of my increasingly “real” body instilled in my a great motivation, through the aforementioned self-loathing, to exercise. This quickly gave way to a greater motivation to avoid exercising. And what a great time it was to start writing again.

My hand has gotten sore, I’m clearly no longer acclimated to this kind of work, and I find myself frequently distracted by my hair as it falls to frame the view of my promising notebook. I stop to examine the split ends, one by one, wishing that I could afford some revolutionary therapy whereby a specialist would strengthen my hair by criticizing it’s weakness. This prolonged and obvious contemplation of my own hair portrays, perhaps, the exact opposite image than that of the deep and mysterious literate that I so vie for. I get embarrassed when I am caught doing it, and this has happened once too often, lately. So I am writing here, at work, in public, to dispel this heinous misconception.

My hair looks great when I write.

On with it.

Labels: coworkers, ego, self-esteem, split-ends, vanity, weight, writing

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 11:49 PM

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Update 11/02/07:
Since I was all clearly on the warpath there, I thought this update deserved to be right in with this same post.

Today, literally as I was typing in a complaint to the better business bureau, I got a call from Sean (I think his name was) down at Key bank, who read my letter today and went ahead and reversed all my overdraft fees-- including $99 dollars worth that went through today.

I maintain that the business practices of Key, in general, are bad, and that you probably belong at a Credit Union, but this is totally redeeming for the branch in Brunswick, Maine.

Local customer service beats out corporate evil. Good headline.

---

Time for the battered consumer to fight back. I'm entirely too angry, right now, to back down. Not gonna happen.

This is the beginning of my war against Key Bank.

Eventually, I'm sure it will be a war against every large, impersonal bank that charges exorbinant fees for the purpose of enriching shareholders. The problem here is that it's illegal for a corporation to not act in the best interest of their shareholders, even when it negatively effects their customers or their community (The exception to that being stakeholder corporations, who accept and act upon the responsibility they have to everyone who has a stake in their business, including employees, customers, the community and the environment. L.L. Bean is a good example of this.)

My job here, our job here, as consumers, is to make sure that it benefits the shareholders for the company to do what benefits us. This generally means that we must throw a screaming, crying fit everytime we get screwed-- enough of one to ultimately effect the stockholder's pocket. Not an easy thing to do in any age, but the power of the internet, of angry, vocal bloggers and forum users makes it easier. So. Let's get started.

First of all, I should point out I had very, very similar problems with T.D. Banknorth, going back to when it was just Banknorth, even. The point ultimately here is this: My money belongs in a credit union. If you are Joe Everyman, your money belongs in a credit union. If you are twentysomething, thirtysomething, struggling to make it, barely making ends meet, you need a credit union. If every time you start to get ahead something happens, if you've ever seen those overdraft fees pile up in and endless cycle that's impossible to catch up with, you need a credit union. Keep in mind that credit unions are member-owned, not stockholder owned. This is George Bailey versus Potter, on the grand scale. Their responsibility is ultimately to those community members who put their money in them. Let that be you.

I know I will, as soon as I get this debaucle cleaned up.

So, why am I starting with Key? Key's the one who is currently screwing me. And while it's policy on a corporate level that is robbing me blind, it's customer service on a branch level that has the power to give me that money back. So my trouble today is very specifically with the Key Bank on Maine Street in Brunswick Maine.

The quick overview of my trouble is this: They claim that four transactions processed on October 26th brought be below Zero-- that is, four transactions each resulted in me having a negative balance.

Aside from the fact that Zack and I checked our balance very carefully before and during our recent trip to Montréal and there was never any indication whatsoever that we might go negative until well after it happened, you can see here that those charges that supposedly brought us negative were processed the same day that both of our Direct Deposits would have more than redeemed them. Anyone with direct deposit will tell you that those deposits go through first thing, 12am or 12:01am, to be specific, and I verified this with our employers. There's no way those other transactions should have gone through first-- even if they, for some reason did, it seems like a heinous misuse of the overdraft fee policy. Overdraft fees are supposed to protect all involve from irresponsible spending. They are not supposed to punish bank users for depending on their bank's accounting or not being able to predict when transactions are going to clear-- it's clear that the money is there to cover the transactions. Processing them in a way that brought the account negative only served to enrich the bank. A total of 99 dollars of overdraft fees that was processed on the 29th.

So, I wrote the bank a letter which I'll have to link to here later-- I'm running out of time before work. In this letter, I requested that they remove the fees, making the same points I did above. Their apparent reaction to this letter was to go back, check the accounting, and realize that they had only processed three overdraft fees instead of four.

As an aside, we checked our balance last night at 11pm to see if the payment for our hotel had gone through yet. We saw that it, and several other transactions, had gone through all at once and it brought our account's projected balance down to 18 cents. The plan was for me to go and deposit some money first thing this morning-- whatever we had around the house, about fifty bucks are so, enough to keep it from going negative until Zack's paid again, tomorrow.

Low and behold, when I got up this morning, they had processed the fourth overdraft charge, which brought the account negative. Then the processed an overdraft charge for the overdraft charge. Then they processed a third overdraft charge for that overdraft charge. Ninety-nine more dollars enriching the bank for no reason, and now I don't have enough on me to bring the balance up above zero.

So. The next step, evidentally, is that I will be charged three more overdraft fees for transactions that were below zero because of those three overdraft fees-- transactions that would not have been, were it not for those overdraft fees, and then more for the overdraft fees themselves, until Zack gets paid tomorrow. Ultimately, that will just barely bring us above Zero, even though it's five hundred dollars.

Yeah, I'm not letting this happen.

So, let's cause some dissent here. If Key ignored my letter, and actually used it as fodder to charge me another fee, than I obviously can't use my loyalty as a bargaining chip. The plan right now is to get as many people as possible-- especially people in the Brunswick area-- to read this, and it's eventual predecessors.

I'm going to link as many angry, anti-key comments as I possibly can at this point, and they aren't hard to find. If I have time later, I'll classify these a little better. For the time being, enjoy.

http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=28172&s=5693

http://www.my3cents.com/companyReview.cgi?compid=445&subcat=10

http://www.i8u.org/blog/?p=563

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/keybanksucks/

http://www.liquidninjas.com/bbs/archive/index.php/t-5042.html

http://groups.msn.com/USBankComplaints/moreusbankblogs.msnw

http://www.judysbook.com/cities/cleveland-oh/Banks/12514131/p1/t2/Keybank.htm
http://everydayfeminism.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html

More later, along with helpful quotes.

I think we all know that I could link all day, but I have other, more important phases of this plan to implement. And I have to take a shower, and go to work, to earn more money for key to steal. We will meet again, angry consumers. I promise you that.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 11:21 AM

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

"It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving.
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust.
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra, lost."

"Alexandra Leaving". A Leonard Cohen song-- Leonard Cohen, as in "Hallelujah"-- that I got into several years ago, right around the time I found out that the Shrek soundtrack's version was not, by a longshot, the first version of Hallelujah. The timing was good, for my discovering it. A song about a woman having an affair, falling in love with a man and about to leave her husband, all except more about it from the husband's point of view-- his somber, somewhat self-deprecating inner voice, perhaps-- I first heard it when I was falling in love with Chad, despite Jeff. It went right into a playllist labelled "infidelity" on my MP3 player, along with Robbie Williams "If It's Hurting You" and "Le Tango De Roxanne" from Moulin Rouge.

In those days, I used the music to crystallize the feelings. Basted myself in them. I don't know why I thought this would help, but I got a lot more writing done than I have lately. Easier then, I suppose, to let myself sit in the things I felt-- passing teenaged drama, and I must have always known that in one way or another.

I used to see movies where the female lead was some love-scorned survivor who no longer possessed the ability to open up, who had to be slowly won over by the hero of the film, patiently and strongly. Saccharin shit, like a Backstreet Boys song. I used to think how stupid it was, didn't believe it. I guess I was judging every woman by my own experience, thinking "What woman would fight falling in love?"

Answer: Any woman that has before. That's what I didn't get.

I was open to love, always, consistently, because I never was. I was open to love because I'd never been in love before, and I'd never been in love before because I never really was open to love, if you can see the tainted logic.

There's something I want to say here, about self-sabotage and self-esteem. About one cause creating one effect through two means. About choosing to be with people I loved very much, but also people I knew weren't going to be too sought after. Did I hone the skill to see positive aspects of someone's personality that other people would look over so that I'd never be forced to doubt myself? Or am I lying to myself to think that I ever chose at all? Is the question what would I have done if someone who was competed for by the opposite sex showed interest in me, or is the question about why they did not?

It's very hard to say all this without feeling like I'm insulting my exes, so I almost offer my apologies. But I'm sick of this shit-- not writing because of people's feelings, not writing because of people's perceptions of me, not writing because of my fucking inlaws. I'm getting pretty close cracking on all of those issues, and I care about fewer people every day. Those of you I love, you should know that. Those of you who I don't love, well, I think I've made that pretty clear, too.

I guess it's not really insulting to just those people I used to be with. I wonder, fairly often, how much of my love for Zack is influenced by the lack of deal-breakers. From Feast of Love (Slow, indie-movie fare, by the way. Wait for it to come to video, unless that's really you're thing.), "A lack of disqualifiers is a rare and beautiful thing." People ask me how I knew I was in love with him, from time to time, and I think my most common answer is that with everyone else I'd ever been with, and just even just people I'd spent a lot of time with, there was always, eventually, some action, some behavior that I knew I couldn't stand for the rest of my life; there was never anything like that with him. Maybe love, "true love", is something that starts happening when you meet someone, anyone, and keeps going until it hits something that stops it. Maybe kismet is just not ever finding something about someone else that makes your skin crawl.

"Amie", by Damien Rice, is playing now-- the playlist is just the twelve or so songs I actually payed for on iTunes. The strings in this song are amazing, I always hoped Casey would listen to it. Certain people almost never take my music suggestions. Seriously, anyway. Now, it's an episode of House. Paid for three of those. I'm skipping back to "Alexandra Leaving" so I can find some charming way to wrap this up, all neat and tidy, in a way that's satisfying to the reader. Always thinking of you, I am.

I was thinking earlier that it doesn't have to be a song about infidelity. I mean, it does, but if you're exceptionally good at being obsessively self-centered-- and I am-- you can find another intepretation. It can be a song about losing yourself. I guess every song about infidelity is, though. It's interesting, how, so often, it's something you get involved with in order to find yourself. How so often, it's not until you've gotten really determined to find the parts of you that you feel are gone that you do the thing that really causes loss.

For me, anything close to infidelity-- and I won't say there's nothing close to it-- is about finding my sexuality. Making sure it's still there. Five years of associating sexual encounters with my husband with pain and more pain, five years of wanting and disappointment...it's just easier not to want, I guess. It's really easy to believe that I'm frigid-- a word I too often hear echoing at me now, a word I hate. There are people who remind me that's it's just a word.

"Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving."

I'd been spending some time with one of them lately, and more time thinking about him. Enough time, in fact, that when he wasn't available for a few weeks and I found myself treking up to Orono to see the other one, I had the ironic thought that I was cheating on him. I'm not past the guilt about Zack, but I manage it with a very precise and respected line and excessive, almost cruel amounts of honesty. I tell him everything I have the slightest inclination to, and he's aware that he has the option to know more, know everything. He knows the reality of the situation, or what I've accepted as the reality: that I'm falling. That I'm grasping at what I can.

My day in Orono was nice-- I got treated to a wonderful meal at a fancy restaurant in Old Town with a gorgeous view of the river that served bread with this incredible butter-- but far too appropriate for my wanting. Still, going up to Orono with the goal in mind that, just for one moment, I'd feel that tangible reminder of the girl I was when I liked who I was-- or was closer to being able to fake it-- I couldn't help but shake the feeling that being with one of the men who serve as means to such an end was betraying the other. That if I was with him again, he'd know...I don't know, something damaging to his ego. And I think I believe his ego is the only reason he hangs out with me, anyway.

I guess it came true, without it having any reason to-- Haven't heard from the other guy since, though. Guess I'll have to live out my days getting my thrills from good bread with expensive butter. Say goodbye to Alexandra, lost.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 1:04 AM

Saturday, September 15, 2007

I always thought that if you were to set out to make the most depressing mix CD in the universe, a project I've been interested in for quite some time now, it would, definitively, have to end in Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." The idea, originally, was to make a CD that would make everyone in the world cry-- somehow, I see this being the part where everyone cracks. Something about it, I don't know. Maybe pure irony. Maybe the terrible pulse of hope. Sometimes, that really is the worst pain of all.

I guess it wouldn't work, a CD to make everyone cry, because in all the forums I've read where people list the most depressing song in the world, I can't help but think of how wrong they are. I downloaded a bunch of them off of one forum at once, I remember. Savage Garden's "Two Bed and a Coffee Machine", certainly a poignant narrative, but somehow not melodic enough to earn the title. AFI's "God Called in Sick Today", well, you'd have to be a very specific kind of fifteen-year-old and deeply affected by sub-par guitar rifts. John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" could do the trick if you were slumped over kitchen table with a bottle in your hand, thinking of how inevitable it is that your life is going nowhere, but it solicits just a bit too much anger to appeal to a purist like myself. And Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again, Naturally" juxtaposition pleasant, tinny melody and simple, devastating lyrics is just slightly too ironic, if you can believe that anything could ever be too ironic, for me.

My own choices have changed over the years as well, obviously. Where once ballads of unreqouited love topped the list (Linda Rondstadt's version of "Long, Long Time", and even- forgive me-- Brandi's "Have You Ever"), my tastes changed as love's pain became more about the fear of loss, rather than the sting of rejection. Today, the muted horns of the Judy Garland's rendition of "The Man That Got Away" serve to usher me hopelessly forward into a chilling vision of the possible future, and more often than not, I'll be teary-eyed by the time I'm belting out the epic final lines right in sync with her shaky, desperate voice: "Ever since this world began there's nothing sadder than a one-man woman looking for the man that got away." Same theme goes for Irving Berlin's "What'll I Do" and Harvey Danger's "Problems and Bigger Ones", and props to Elorza for having me download "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" years before I could ever appreciate it. Are these ex-love solos a little too lonesome for you? How about a duet about a bitterly failing marriage, a la Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand? "I learned how to laugh and I learned how to cry, I learned how to love and I learned how to lie. So you'd think I could learn how to tell you goodbye."

Failed love-- past present or future-- not your cup of tea? The loss of Chad's grandfather this past month has me listening to Harvey Danger's "Jack the Lion" quite a bit. For me, nothing says death of a grandparent like the Mariah Carey's version of "Without You", which would fit better into the previous category, were it not for the vivid memory I have of it playing in the car during the funeral procession of my father's mother. I have surprisingly few actual death songs on my computer right now-- the ever tragic "Tears in Heaven", always poignant in the moment but a bit too clichéd for me, "Paint it Black" is great, but again, not purist, maybe because I'd heard it about sixty times before I knew exactly what it was about. Check out "Give Back Yourself" by the Gufs (featuring Rob Thomas) for one you probably haven't heard. Unconventional death songs...Ben Fold's Five "Brick" is a great abortion song, should you ever have the need. My personal favorite suicide song would have to be "Camera One" by the Josh Joplin Group-- Bright Eyes' "No Lies, Just Love" would beat it out, were it not for the rather hopeful ending, and Blink 182's "Adam's Song" deserves an honorable mention, if only for the line that speaks so clearly to anyone who's ever considered suicide before-- "Please tell Mom this is not her fault." "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" is, of course, incomparable, but I prefer not to think of this as a suicide song.

Okay, this has become more of a list than anything else, but bare with me, I think I'm almost done.

Let's see, miscellaneous depressing. Obviously, Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", with some personal preference to the Rufus Wainwright version, and hey, while we're on it, let's give some props to all the Shrek soundtracks, all of which really set the bar for incredible variety of theme-- Tom Waits, on a kid's movie soundtrack? Brilliant. (Points taken away, however, for forcing a peppy song out of masters of depressing music, Counting Crows.)

The two Fray hits. Ani's "Untouchable Face", or "Sorry I Am", or others that I am forgetting. "Blood And Roses" by the Smithereens. "Older Chests" or "Cheers Darlin'" by Damien Rice. "My Immortal" by Evanescence. Martin Sexton's "Can't Stop Thinking About You". Joan Armatrading's "The Weakness in Me". "I'm Movin' On" by the Rascall Flatts. Maybe "Heather Nights" by Buck 65. Joni Mitchell, "Both Sides Now". Janis Ian, "At Seventeen."

Ahh, I could go on way too long. I'll enable comments-- must go to bed.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 10:41 PM

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

"All the things I deserve,
For being such a good girl, honey."

Deserve. That's such an interesting word, it's tied to such an interesting concept. Mr. Leighton used to be hooked on a blog called "What I Deserve". What a perfectly ambiguous title. I didn't appreciate it amply at the time.

I was dancing with Chad at his prom, our senior year. This was the song. I'm sure I've told the story here a dozen times before; it doesn't matter. I can't hardly write on this thing anymore. Redundant might be better than silent. Then again, it might not.

I was dancing and this was the song. He was holding me tightly, I believe, or just tightly enough-- who remembers these details? What I do remember was the comforting warmth of his size, what some might call slightly overweight, and a bit taller than me. Maybe it's not so much that I even remember it, exactly, but if I close my eyes and breath in slowly threw my nose as I picture it, my body seems to know how to go back to that moment instinctively, I feel the reaction, I smile.

At one point, he pulled back just enough to look at me, straight in the eye, and he said "I enjoy spending time with you more than anybody else, I think." And it was perfect-- there's very little I like better than that kind of specific sincerity. It felt so much more genuine than those other words he could have said. What I found out later is that, beyond the superior specificity, it didn't quite translate on some more fundamental levels. But it was perfect, right then.

I'm listening to this song, I don't know. Because I've been spending a lot of time talking to Chad lately, seen him a few times. Because the feelings that I never got over with him, well, they've turned more or less comfortable and dependable, in relative terms.

Because, a few moments ago, I knew Zack would be walking through the door at any moment. When I left him in the living room to come in here, I left him in the knowledge that something was wrong, but not what. I was staring at a picture of Chad and I taken on that very night, and I was listening to the other song I associated with him during those key few months of our relationship-- "Standing Still" by Jewel. The plan, more or less, was that Zack would come in and see me looking at this picture of Chad, and he'd figure that was the basis of the problem I couldn't talk about.

Some guy I never got over. Someone I'll always be a little bit in love with. That's nothing we haven't dealt with a hundred times before.

Zack being who he is, he would have just gone to bed, put it out of his mind. Never suspecting the problem that lies deeper. The realization I just came to. The chilling truth I've just now verbalized, that every decent fiber of my being wants him never to have to bear the truth of.

If he's curious enough even to check this, and I doubt that he is, he'll see a few paragraphs about Chad and feel, I don't know. A relief in the familiarity of it all. Never get this far into the post. And you thought your relationship was dysfunctional.

"Foolish Games" by Jewel. That's what I'm listening to now.

When it all came down to it, I didn't have the will to lie in any capacity, it seems. Minimized the picture as he walked through the door. Told him I'd be to bed in a few minutes, when he asked. Kissed him goodnight. Stayed aloof in that telltale way. It won't come to anything, but I shouldn't take the chance that he'll be curious tomorrow. That if he asks what this is all about, I'll tell him.

The bitch of writing a post based around a song is that you have to listen to the song about a hundred times to get through the whole thing. I'm back to "Underneath your Clothes", by Shakira, in case you didn't recognize the quote in the beginning.

When Chad eventually answered the question that Jewel had posed for me-- "Do you want me like I want you? Or am I standing still?"-- and told me that, our fling being what it was (an infidelity), he was back with his ex-girlfriend, I couldn't escape the irony of Shakira's lyrics everytime I heard it. "Underneath your clothes, there's an endless story. There's the man I chose. There's my territory. And all the things I deserve, for being such a good girl, honey."

The last therapist I saw for vaginismus made a breakthrough with me, and whether or not it was a particularly helpful one, well, I never did go back. He woke me up to the buried belief I have, something I've managed to keep on the downlow, even from myself: that I believe I deserve the vaginismus. That I feel I am being, rightly, punished for something else, something that I did. More likely, something that was done to me before I was old enough to realize that I was the victim.

Whatever the reason, it seems the facts are the same: all this time that I've been thinking the critically low self esteem was caused by the vaginismus, I really had it all backwards. Don't that beat all.

Underneath my clothes, there's an endless story. Of all the things I deserve.

Like I said. It's an interesting word.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 12:06 AM

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Why have I been less compelled to post here lately? There's so many possible explanations.

I've been very busy.

And I haven't wanted to go completely public with the things I've been busy with.

Because I'm afraid of failure, it seems-- of people asking me how something's going, and my waffling around my own way of saying it's not, not anymore. Anything big I plan to accomplish, I try to keep it a secret. Except that nearly everyone I talk to anymore already knows about this.

But what about the people I hope still read this, whom I don't talk to anymore?

And are they the reason I don't post at all? Because I have too much pride to admit any secret pain, in case they are reading? Or, more likely, because I'm too afraid that if I go out on a limb to put it out there, they'll never read it.

Maybe I'm not sad enough lately-- no pained inspiration.

Or maybe I'm so sad, so lonely and hopeless and spent that I can't even bare to think about it. This seems to hit home. There's a visual in my mind of the sand rushing through an hour glass, except how it looks from the top, falling through a hole you can't even see until the chamber is nearly empty.

I miss a lot of people. I don't have the strength to hide their names with clever references or hard-to-follow descriptions. I don't have the vanity anymore to pretend that anyone out there is piecing the puzzles together, trying to figure out who's who. But I still have too much pride to call them by their names. Trying so hard to play hard-to-get. Having become convinced that it's my eagerness to be with other people that makes them so disinterested in being with me, like a song that played at the concert Zack and I went to tonight. "You were looking for your distance and sensing my resistance."

It was Indigo Girls with Brandi Carlile, part of the L.L. Bean free concert series. One song was introduced as being "From Emily", and I was thinking that might have been the name of it instead of just who it was from-- didn't know, as I'm not more than a passing fan-- that Emily is the name of one of the two of them. Anyway, figuring that if it was called "From Emily", Emily would know that, I called her number and just held the cell phone up for a few minutes, hoping she'd hear it and piece it together that I was thinking of her. In reality, it probably just came off as really, really annoying. This is life.

Another song in the earlier evening caught my attention, and brought my thoughts to another person. Brandi Carlile, opening, ended her set with Hallelujah, and a ridiculously beautiful rendtion at that. I couldn't help but be effected, and though about dialing another familiar number, but there was no way to ask for Zack's phone with any amount of tact. He sensed the change in my atmosphere, though, and asked if I was okay. "It's our song." I told him. Then looked up, "Not ours."

"I know." He told me.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Do you know whose song it is?" I asked.

"I don't want to know." He said, keeping it simple, and light. Had this been a test, and it might have been, scores like these would have me convinced that this particular pupil was an emotional genius. Then other times, when he comes to class with his homework carved into his arm, I have to rethink.

He doesn't read this, not much, not unless I ask him to. I guess that could be a lie, but I don't think it is-- the way I figure it, reading this makes him feel the way reading his poetry makes me feel: when you read the work of someone this close to you, you never know what you're going to find out about yourself, whether it's there in the words, or, more often, in your own reaction to them.

When I heard Brandi Carlile's single, "The Story", the first time on the episode of Grey's Anatomy that launched it like "Chasing Cars" and "How to Save a Life" before it, the jury was really out for me about whether or not I liked her-- something about her look, as if it's relevant, and her voice. Something strange. It only took her one song tonight to convert me.

On another music-and-people note, they've been playing a bad Dean Martin version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" at work a lot lately. Clearly, there's no escaping your past.

As if the dreams I have once a week or so that everything was alright again with that particular memory weren't enough to prove that.

In my dreams, he shows up out of nowhere, and we fall into each other's arms without hesitation, and instantly, all is forgiven. All that was his fault, all that was mine. This is the reunion my subconscious wants for me, this pure, generous, unselfish forgiveness. This "love means never having to say your sorry" cliché.

Because, it occurs to me, that's what the most fundamental part of me feels should be, in situation like ours, with a friendship like ours. Was.

Ah, but it's cold outside.

On with it.

You've been struck by a SuedeCaramel at 11:20 PM

About Me

Name: SuedeCaramel
Home: Brunswick, Maine, United States
About Me: Stranger than your average stranger.
See my complete profile

Vaginismus

Ways to support Linda in overcoming Vaginismus
More coming very soon!

1. Leave some words of encouragement. *Coming Soon* 2. Tell someone about Vaginismus.
As a My Cavalier Approach to Human Decency reader, you probably have more knowledge about Vaginismus than the average person. Let someone know. This problem is a silent killer. Let's get the word out.

Floyd, Emily and Serena