Pants on fire

So I listened to this great RadioLab piece on lying today.  They talk for a while about a con-artist and then get into the phenomenon of self-deception.  They used a questionaire to determine whether people were being truthful to themselves or not, which asks personal questions like whether you’ve ever had a rape fantasy or if you enjoy your bowel movements.  Basically, if you said ‘no’ to any of their questions, you were full of shit (figuratively).  Then they compared these results to the results from other studies and found out that, among other things, people who lied to themselves were both better competitors (namely in sports) as well as generally happier than people who were more truthful with themselves.  Seems that ignorance is bliss and the truth hurts.  (How’s that for cliche, huh?)  Who knew?

So what I wonder is, is it a choice?  Once you have seen reality for what it really is, can you ever go back to ignorance?  God seems to disagree.  (Damn you, Eve, you ruined it for everyone!)  And how does it happen that you move from ignorance to knowledge and awareness?  Is it one single event?  Is it your environment or upbringing?  Is it drugs?  Or none of the above, as we are all somewhat aware of some things, but blissfully unaware of others?

One commentator on the piece asserted that the pure, true joy that comes out of full awareness completely trumps any happiness that the liars might experience.  So maybe there are lower lows, but there are also higher highs.  But I come back to the choice thing…what does it matter which is better when I’m not completely sure that we have complete free will in this issue?  It’s like saying to an ugly person that they should have chosen to be beautiful.  But that brings up the question of free will in anything, and well, quite frankly I’m tired.  I’ll figure that one out tomorrow.

No pizza tastes this good

Flying Pie Pizza, my latest greatest source of income, opened their store up this week.  And has had ridiculous amounts of customers.  One of my managers, soon to be part-owner, told me that he had worked 110 hours that week.  Wow.  I can’t even get my head around that.  And this would all be fine, except that I end up busting my ass, along with all my other coworkers, to take care of the clients, who are all disgruntled anyway because they have to wait almost 1 1/2 hours for a pizza.  No joke, that was the wait time last night.  I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t say anything, I would end up stuck at the register for 6 hours straight, with no break, because my managers have completely forgotten about me while trying to get eighty zillion other things done.  Josh keeps reassuring me that it will die down, and that they’re trying to take care of us, but I don’t really see it.  And none of the other people that work there are asking for breaks, because, well, I’m not completely sure why.  But all I know is that after 4 straight hours of being treated like a non-human piece of machinery put into high-speed, I start to break down.  Physically, mentally, emotionally, I have reached my limits several times this weekend.  And although I feel weak and selfish asking for my ten-minute breaks, and actually leaving when my schedule says I’m off…well, I’d rather be weak and selfish than the alternative.  It’s hard to stop, though, when I see everyone working their asses off, and when I know that I could really use the extra cash.  But let’s see, how does the commercial go…?  A night’s wages plus tips: $87.  The chance to read a great book quietly in bed: priceless. (PS This is my activity of choice (mostly) for this Saturday night.)  Condemn me if you will, I have no regrets.

even if curiosity killed the cat, doesn’t it still have 8 more lives?

Portland is an interesting city, full of pockets and blind spots and tunnel vision.  For example, I live in an area that is made up of a great diversity of people, but the salient factor seems to be desperation.  Smokey dive bars with lottery games and tinted windows occasionally give me a glimpse inside to see creased, gray faces staring right back at me.  Run-down hotels like The Unicorn offer safe havens for junkies to be left alone by cops I never see.  Thrift stores carry dingy clothes I wouldn’t spend $1 on, but for some reason I keep going back, hoping to find something valuable amongst the throw-aways.  And then there’s the trendier inner-southeast section, peopled mostly by struggling 20-somethings, people who seemingly make up their life from the ways they spend their hard-earned money: hip cafes, bars, vintage clothing stores, bike shops, food co-ops.  Or else it comes from doing things to make up a mental resume advertising their trendiness: diy projects completed, art galleries visited, cult movies seen.  This demographic is still a bit of a mystery to me, although I assume (with a little chagrin) that we probably have a lot in common.  Finally, at least for the east side, there’s North Portland, with Alberta Arts, the Mississippi district, and probably a number of other areas I don’t know yet.  In my imagination, these areas are filled with people of all backgrounds, realistic people who know what really matters.  People who have looked both desperation and hipsterdom in their faces and walked away to find their own meaning in life.  Do such people really exist, I wonder?  And can I really find them in this semi-fictional area of North Portland?  Or is this too a place of clichés and superficiality? 

The other possibility, perhaps a little scarier, is that these real people exist everywhere, camouflaged to fit in with their surroundings, requiring a few well-placed magic words to melt away their disguises and show me the beauty of humanity underneath.  This is scarier because it means that it is up to me to make the most of my contact with people.  That there is no perfect district that will give me the key to living the life that I want to live, but that I myself hold the key.  Perhaps this is what fairy tales like Beauty and the Beast were really about…that people are only monsters as long as you see them that way, that everyone has blue blood running in their veins.  Is this possible?  And if so, do I have the strength and courage to seek that out in people?  Or will I be happier to just keep relocating until I find a place to live amongst people who are “like me”? I’m not completely sure that at this point in my life I am stable enough to resist the influences of my environment: desperate environs tend to making me feel drawn, malnourished, exhausted.  And being surrounded by hipsters will probably convince me pretty well to spend my time looking for things to enhance my coolness.  So I’m going to imagine that North Portland is the fairytale land that I’m looking for and check it out some more.  There’s no harm in testing hypotheses, right?

introduction to the rest of my life

In real life, time extends infinitely into the past and as far into the future. There is an endless number of points of view, one for every consciousness that ever was and will be created. And so stories overlap, intertwine, collide. It is an amusing pastime to blame, judge, believe that one story is more correct than another. And to a certain extent, there is a truth to this…my version of my life is the one that is right in my eyes. But to always remember that everyone sees things this way, well, stories get a little confusing with too many narrators, rather like an M.C. Escher painting. And so I choose to write this story from one point of view only, namely mine. Is it completely correct in the eyes of an impartial observer? Probably not. But then I have to ask, does such a thing exist? So keeping that in mind, I begin.

This particular story opens on a young woman of 22, newly out of college, for the first time moving more than 30 miles away from her parents. The young woman is me. The new home is Portland, Oregon.

I remember telling my parents that I was going to move. “But what are you going to do there?” asked my mom. “And will you have enough money? And how will you find a place to live? And what about your health insurance?” “She is still covered under my insurance for now,” my dad spoke up. “But I agree. Why don’t you just move back in with us and save money while you’re figuring things out? Then you can spend it on something really worthwhile, like your future education.”

I looked at them, saying nothing, partly because I didn’t know what to say, partly because I knew that anything I could say wouldn’t matter anyway. I finally decided on, “Look, I already told you, I’ve got to get out of here. If I stay in Houston any longer, I’m going to go crazy.”

“Moving to Portland sounds pretty crazy to me. But what do I know, I’m just your father,” mutters my dad with not a little bitterness.

Mom: “Look honey, you know that we love you and we respect your decisions. But we just don’t understand why you have to ‘find yourself’ so far away from us. Haven’t we been good parents? Haven’t we always been there for you? You’ve always tried to assert your independence from us. Why don’t you just let us take care of you for a little while? It would mean so much to us. We love you so much, you know.”

Another silence. Finally: “If you can’t understand why I’m leaving, then I can’t explain it to you. I just have to go, that’s all. There’s nothing else to it. I’ve already booked my ticket, I’m leaving in a month.”

Tears well up in my mother’s eyes. I play with the blue and white fringes of our checked tablecloth, not wanting to look at her. I hate this. I want them to understand, I want them to trust me. Why don’t they trust me? And why does my mom have to take it so damned personally? It has nothing to do with her. Well, okay, yes it does. But not in the way she thinks. Of course I want her to be happy. I’d do anything for her to be happy. Anything except stay there and live with them. Foolish, crazy, naïve? I didn’t rule out the possibility. But I had to know…I had to find out for myself what it meant to really be on my own.

maybe it’s the full moon

I gave my notice at the coffee shop yesterday!!!!  I’m moving up in the world…now I’m working at a pizza place.  Maybe now I’ll be able to get more than 4 hours of sleep a night, and will look and feel a little bit less like the living dead.

And, I told Dain (the unnamed victim of a Natural Disaster) that I didn’t want to date him anymore.  The main problem was that he was a really nice guy.  Too bad.  Next.

And I’m contemplating moving to a new house, which I checked out last night.  What would you do if one of your roommates makes you feel vaguely uncomfortable most of the time, but with nothing you can really pin down specifically?  I would run away, apparently.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

weird is as weird does

One thing I’m realizing in my old age is that I’m not such a complete weirdo after all.  Or maybe it’s that I’m a complete weirdo and so is everyone else.

As the lovely Adri so astutely points out:

“We’ll never be normal. Stop trying.”

what do normal people write about in these things, anyway?

I wonder if some day I’m going to look back at this blog and regret revealing so much of myself in a semi-public setting.

On the other hand, I really love looking at these little things I write and making believe that they are published.

Poets don’t seem to have too much fear in baring (burying?) their souls in their work.

Okay, I can handle that.

love pangs

Your words slicing through my brain

Elegance of razor blades

A surgeon’s touch

You knew where to cut

Such small wounds I never even saw them

I thought I imagined the pain

Never thought that you,

My doctor, my priest, my savior

Titles you gave yourself

Could command so much confidence

Could do so much damage

Doubts, small white birds

Fluttered in

Telling me of coming cold and rains

I didn’t understand their language

We chased them away together,

Holding hands and laughing

 

You floated so serenely above everything

I believed you close to walking

On my troubled waters

But I couldn’t float

So I tried sinking, and learned I could swim

Mud streaking my face

Seaweed in my hair

I emerged the monster

But dry land never felt so good

To wobbly legs

And now I still find bits of your dirt

Clinging to my heart

Dripping from my fingers

Leaving muddy footprints and dirtying my sheets

I have washed so many times

I am still not rid of your scent

But at times I find

A soft salty stream

To bathe my eyelashes

And drip off my chin

Makes sting those tiny incisions

Forgotten but not gone

The sweetness of the pain

As they are washed clean

The sweetness of the scream

As I release

A little bit more

A little bit more

And one of these days

My floors cleaned

My hair combed

My scent my own

I will look around

And you will be gone.

Natural Disaster

I.

You think I am normal;

I am not

I carry my camouflage well

These fashions

This hairstyle

These manners of speech

I am a good student

Of the ways of our society

So skilled at this craft

That my mask seems real

But

Look further, deeper

And you will see eyes

That burn and shy away

With secrets that they long to tell

That they dare not tell

Listen longer

And you will hear

The stutters and hesitations

Of one who does not speak her native tongue

 

II.

Normal is easy

But me

I am a bit more difficult

I will try your patience

I will leave you wondering

What monsoon passed through

Are you ready

For unpredictable natural disasters

Mine is not the slow steady melt of glaciers

But the chaos of avalanches

Throwing innocent bystanders off their steady footing

Into the abyss below

We make no apologies

This is our way

Take it or leave it

Do you want your life to be easy

Or filled with heroism and

Survival stories

I won’t blame you if you take off running

For the nearest blonde bomb shelter

But I can’t help but hope that

You might have some strong forces of your own

To make me carry an umbrella

Just in case

Damn.

I couldn’t figure out why I wanted him to dance with me so badly.  He was a good dancer, sure, but there were plenty of good dancers in the room who kept asking me to dance.  And when I had danced with him before, I didn’t feel like we particularly gelled as partners.  But there I was, watching him longingly as he asked the girl next to me onto the floor.  All I wanted was to smell his scent again.  And then it struck me: he looked so much like the last object of my affection, down to 5 o’clock shadow, the muscular arms, and the rolled-sleeve flannel shirt that hung so well on his torso.  Dammit.  I thought I had been so effective in stepping away from those emotions, the sense of desperation and desire as Chris could be so close to me and still so untouchable.  I had been looking back on those events as an impartial observer, like the reader of an average novel, interested but unmoved.  In trying to forget the difficulty of that time, I had been trying to erase it, trying to pretend that I had never been affected, that receiving the affection of this person had never been my all-consuming obsession for a time.  But here came back all these emotions, the neediness, the desire, the rejection.

Thank God for being human.