When I say or do pure things, people support me in that they voice agreement. I get surprised, because their actions don’t follow the agreed thing in a way I would expect action to follow belief. I feel betrayed, or like I’m out on a raft and people are giving me a thumbs up from the shore. It hedges my good efforts, creates resentment. I’m working to resolve this conflict.

People….. are….. different……. from……….. each other. It might be expecting too much for everyone to follow me on whatever individualistic path I’m ribboning. Maybe honestly the most they can do is shout, “I like what you’re doing” across the way. I wouldn’t want to spit on their gift.

This tattoo is floating along the neck napes of a few different girls in my classes:

Does it mean something more than what I think? I mean it looks neat, but I wonder why they all have it. Oh, maybe it’s a common tattoo design that’s on the tattoo parlor wall….

at this moment

I have many words, but they aren’t the words of songs. I have no poetry.

(yet)

cheesey phrases i quietly used

1. Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail (takes you down….), you’ll end up in the stars (builds you up!)

2. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. (shifts focus to present)

3. Take responsibility for your actions. (duh)

4. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength. (repeat)

5. Words like water are easily poured but impossible to recover. (Mr. Patience Of A Flood!)

6. The true journey of life consists not of seeking new landscapes but of having new eyes. (appreciate)

 

I had a dream about my mom earlier in this semester where I said, “You’re an atheist! Admit it!” Accompanying that shout was a small feeling of being unhooked. I talked to Mom spa-side tonight, me in the spa and her in a deck chair, and I ended up saying the basic mottos I got from our family over the lakehouse Spring Break stay.

-Don’t do weird things.

-Don’t do things that stand out.

-Make sense.

She nodded with a sort of deliberating/burn-the-witch expression on her face. Then her gaze moved around like lots of inner tumble motivated it.

“Whatcha thinking?” I asked and pined to know.

Her face suddenly clouded, she frowned, and glared at me.

“I think about lots of things.”

Shortly thereafter she goodnighted her presence from me.

This is something that has happened before, because I recall the feeling memory of open approach and this… hateful… slashing… of my outreach. I mean, there was nothing behind my question, no manipulative or malicious motives, but the way she suddenly recoiled. I had no idea what I’d done. What came to mind as I floated around afterwards was that maybe the last person she trusted was my dad, and that didn’t turn out so well. Then I remembered watching home videos of them together, and she had still been pretty surly, guarded, and sharp in those. Then I thought it might have started with the parents, Grammy and Grampy, good citizens enough but not stellar examples of communicating inner state. And from whom had they learned their habits? Their own family, somewhere in the Depression. Then, as I bobbed in the water, I actually said out loud, “People lived in the Depression and didn’t turn out like that. Some of them know how to talk about things.” They weren’t even very deprived or poor, from what I know. I thought, it’s possible for your heart to survive time.

So I still don’t necessarily have an answer of where it began, and that’s not entirely pertinent to the present (although I am curious)… but golly gee damn, does anyone have any perspective on this? I’m trying not to let this damage me, i.e. carrying on bad comm. habs. Saying “comm. habs.” is more fun.

popcorn

I’m not shy enough to ruin my life. I can still attend classes, make okay grades, and talk to people with a nervous, timid, sometimes friendly energy.

I’m just shy enough to keep happiness out of it.

Sleep dep high is gone… Rehearsal sucked. I don’t feel flexible. I fear the stigma of mental illness and fall toward claiming it. Like being ashamed of a deformed little brother, so he runs up to you on the playground and calls out, “Hey, Sis!”

One thing that was neat tonight was Morgan’s house. He immediately showed me his giant cat Master Jones or “Massey”, an orange Norwegian something, who really is bigger than Waffle. Then he introduced me to Hershey the poodle. I enjoyed his house, because there was no pretense of not living in it. Food was on all the counters and in racks like a feast permanently laid out, and good food, I almost nipped a ginger slice. There was a conglomeration of couches and tables around a big-screen tv and people coming and going. I walked out of my parents’ mindset into the freefalling atmosphere of his house… I wish I could have absorbed it more. His initial friendliness made me hopeful, but then I got this sinking feeling that he thought I was bad in the scene, and I was bad. actually. I was bad. I was bad.

It’s sort of freeing to say though. I was bad. I was bad. I was soooooooooooooooo bad. I freakin didn’t change my intonation appropriately, I moved stiffly, I got distracted mid-sentence, I glanced at the director [turtle] more than ever according to her[turtle]… I was so baaaad hahahahaha a I was so bad hahahaahahahahahaah

And I’m still alive!  That’s the thing. Doing a bad job at something becomes less frightening when you are allowed to live after doing so. Not like those other times when they……

It’s about time I sucked at something anyway. Right? Am I right?

But seriously I’ll use spring break to tune myself up and destroy the reverence of those lines so they can live.

a ringa ringa ringa a ringa ringa ringa a ringa ringa ring a ring a ring <–Slumdog Millionaire song stuck in head

I do want to be more friends with turtle and Morgan. They’re intelligent but not swollen.

Note: I originally made this Private, but it turned out not that personal.

Other note: Because I gave up Facebook, I may be coming here more. But I wonder if this is a better place, encouraging me to be generative rather than lose myself in other people? Yes. I’ll decide that now. Yep.

Harsh Strings

Here in my Professional Development in Psychology class, my professor is talking about reinventing yourself on a regular basis.  This is something I get the urge to do… but something else is stopping me. This entry is devoted to finding what that is. I hope you injoy enjoy this essay.

When I start to imagine who I want to be ideally, I imagine people claiming that I’m copying others. I imagine myself becoming another cookie cutter in the Denton socialscape.

Ideas are being spoken in class. They’re coming toward me. They’re hitting my ears and funneling into my brain, but this melting force says, “Eventually, you have to stop learning. Eventually, you have to stop at one point.”

What an insane thought. No wonder I’m continually writhing. It’s an impossible requirement, to find one state of being and hold it constantly, all the time, unchanging… and why? To what end? I’m not even sure what it could mean to hold one state forever. And yet I feel this constant pushing down to not change, not change, not change. Am I a point at which all forces lean? If I changed, would the beams of existence come crashing down? I don’t think so.

Steven’s words from Seattle resound: “You tend to heap way too much responsibility on yourself, more than is fair.”

How do I want to change anyway?

I want to be more open. I want to show myself to people instead of living within a construct.  I want to be bubbling up from within myself, outward. Ideas! Kindness! Value of life! Beauty…

The other change-stopper I find is embarrassment. Preservation of my outer-image, eliminating any possibility of another person judging me or laughing at me, is the apex of my endeavors. I shrink in disgust from associating with this belief, and yet it has taken such pervasive root in my character.

I guess I forgot to mention that my mom came to Denton last weekend…

That Ol’ Conflict

:: listening to Cat Power’s The Greatest ::

How can this be called secular?

FREAK OUT

RAMONA QUIMBY BOOKS GAVE ME BAD COPING SKILLS!

Every book was a build-up of minor frustrations until, at the end, she explodes and yells just how angry she’s gotten and what’s been bothering her.  I read them alot when I was in second grade and decided that this must be the way problems are handled.  She was such a stressed out kid.  I remember one time she got all freaked out and was like, “I’m going to do something really bad!  I’m going to squeeze the toothpaste from the middle!”

I’m printing out my psychology of women essay to turn in a few hours from now… and I have to read an entire chapter for that class in a few hours… I have to write a behavioral therapy essay due tomorrow… and then, while darting around Blackboard to find what I might miss from skipping Developmental Psychology today, I discover Homework #2 has been posted for awhile and is due Thursday: observations of children’s toys or children themselves.  And statistics homework this weekend.   

I haven’t started shouting… yet. 

Maybe I’ll start shouting cyberly… now.

I really want to take a shower and sleep.  Recently, I’ve had two incidents of leaving food in the oven to heat up and forgetting about it.  These resulted in two very charred breadsticks and one very charred cheese sandwich.  They looked like mummies.  I only have one pair of socks left unless you count colorful poofy furry ones received as a Christmas present and some ultra-warm, two-inch-thick, navy blue hiking socks.  There’s a gnat flying around my computer persistently, periodically.  It just flew into my nose for a second.  Last week, I accidentally walked into the men’s restroom.  I wanted to expand on that experience poetically, but I didn’t have time to do so!  WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

TWO SPACES AFTER A PERIOD!  Who taught me that?  SEE, look, after each period, my thumb reflexively hits the space bar tcktck, two times.  I’ve been doing it since an unrememberable time.  Unrememberable!

Now APA format is telling me “one space after a period” and somehow I was supposed to have never learned the two-space dictum. Dictum, where did that word come from?  That was one of those words where you surprise yourself, you wonder how you pulled it out and from where… Dictum, wow.  IMPRESSED.

When do I get time to wash my socks?  When do I get time to sleep until I feel rested?  When was I supposed to have learned the one-space standard??

 

Okay, I think I can organize this.  I have to fold up the homework assignments into little origami boxes of time and space, instead of them being massive cumulonimbus clouds of foreboding.  

First, psychology reading.  Now.

I can write the behavioral essay later.  At least I don’t have class until noon tomorrow.  If I go to bed at midnight and wake up at eight, that’s a good night’s sleep, plus I’ll still have three hours to translate my outline and ideas into some kind of cohesive writing.

Wednesday afternoon and evening: devoted to Developmental.

Statistics over Thursday and Friday. 

Weekend–FREE.  I’m going to look ahead and start planning already, otherwise I get no meandering time, and I really need meandering time.

Give it a chance

Ah, crap.

Perfectionism.

I do this all-or-nothing thing where I’m like, “Well, it’s not my absolute best, so I won’t turn it in.”  A pride thing?  Except it turns out worse, since I could’ve at least gotten partial credit on the statistics homework I just decided to not turn in.

Angelaaaaaaaaa

stop ittttttttttttt

 

I just imagined the teacher seeing the questions I didn’t have time to complete, and he’d be like, “Look at this half-asser.  This is college.  Why does she think she can just not answer certain questions?” 

Although if he teaches statistics, he might be more objective than that and not take an unanswered question so personally/philosophically.  Humm.

One time I turned in an essay on Gandhi to my World History teacher.  I thought it was really shaky, so I wrote him a letter and stapled it at the back that was like:

Dear Mr. O’Murchu,

I know that this is not my best writing.  Just so you don’t think I turned it in thinking that it was good…

or something along the lines of that.

He never mentioned the letter to me… I got a 90 on the paper.

Tapping the Glass

I just came from bursting into tears on a couch at the student housing office in Jones Hall.

I was really upset, because I had started the whole add-drop process this morning when I hit a brick wall at ten hours of credit.  The brainless robot web advisor just wouldn’t let me register for any more.  At first, I thought it had to do with the level of classes.  I tried registering for a lower level statistics class to test my theory.  It, the thing, the programmed thing that doesn’t bend rules, wouldn’t allow that either.  It told me I had to have a housing assignment and to call the housing number… so I did, and I explained my situation, and the lady said that I was under 21 and under 60 hours of credit (I think I have like 56.  ARGGRRHG SO STUPID), so I have to live on campus or at home with my parents if I want to be a full-time student. 

Is this 1930?  I’m surprised she didn’t ask me if I was wearing a skirt above my ankles either.  Or if I was betrothed yet.  I’m over 18…. WHY can’t I live on my own?

Well, anyway, I do live in a house in Denton, so I said that I lived at home and expected that I’d have to supply an electricity bill or something.

“Okay, then you need to fill out a form that you and your parents sign and have notarized.”

 

NOTARIZED?  Me and my parents?  What about people whose parents are dead?  What about people who are estranged, completely on their own?  They HAVE to live in your stupid dorm?  What are you worried will happen to them without you, TWU? 

The university hasn’t caught up to us new-fangled gals.

 

I still thought I was okay, thought I had time to bring the form to my mom this weekend and bring it back Tuesday, but then Sara mentioned that today was the last day for late registration.  EVERYTHING IS AGAINST ME.  Or everything is against change. 

First I went to the registrar and asked if there was any way I could force the registration and turn in the form later.  They kind of laughed and asked their supervisor, who said no, and I kind of said, “This is so fucking stupid” and they sent me to Housing.

 

As I walked across campus to get to Housing, scenes started filling my head, swirling around in a high-pressure whirlwind… Sitting at my dad’s dinner table on a visit home as he asks, “How many hours did you take this semester?” and I nervously twirl spaghetti and say a number less than twelve and try to act like I’m okay with it, which actually only adds to his conviction that I’m a lazy, directionless slacker hippie daughter.  Then there’s the puffing up like an agitated bird, my dad, a self-proclaimed “hard ass”, whose approach is generally to “get tough”, because people only make decisions based on their diligence or lack thereof, and it’s not possible to be confused, only to be a manipulating-the-system shirker.  He’s too accustomed to the environment of raising my stepsister, I think.  He’d be like, “Ange, that’s not okay.  We’re giving you money every month, because you’re supposed to be going to school full-time.”  But the disapproval will only make me feel like shit rather than uncover my extortionary plans and make me say, “You’re right, Dad.  Glad you’re here to keep me in line.”  Because he got a hypersensitive daughter who wants to please her parents, disapproval destroys her and makes her nervous to the point of breakdown. My mom would take a similar tough stance of “get yourself together”.  A sympathetic bunch.

Although now it only takes the possibility of disapproval… that’s when I started shaking and getting teary as I walked across campus, imagining going through the entire semester of shame. 

It’s not pressure to graduate sooner or anything.  It’s just them and the rest of my family.

“Oh, Angela, you’re a smart girl, why aren’t you living up to your potential?”

 

I made it to housing, though, and kept my voice from cracking long enough to explain the situation, that there was no way I could get a notarized form to them by 6 pm today, and they said I could talk to a higher person who could remove the hold but reinstate it later if I didn’t turn in the form.  It was exactly what I needed (and exactly what I had proposed to the helpless registrar people).  The dam was about to break, though, from all the pressure that had built up in the last twenty minutes, so I couldn’t even say thanks, I had to walk downstairs really quickly to retreat to a couch in the corner.  I made a plan to go back up later and say, “Sorry if I was rude.  I was just upset.  Thanks for your help.”

 

The fact that this made me so angry/frustrated/anxious/nervously-wrecked shows how fragile I am currently.  I wouldn’t have gotten so upset about something school-related a few years ago.