Thursday, October 13, 2011
secret shame. other than dove bars.
i was feeling perfectly fine this morning. tired. whatever. excited to get to the coffee shop and eat a pain au chocolat (new leaf, yes. skipping pastry, no). and in my morning scan of internet offerings, i found a friend of mine interviewed about being a mom.
why am i so convinced that other people are having more fun than i am? when i hear stories about people investing in themselves and getting happy, sometimes they make me despair. because i think i can't do that? because it doesn't work? because for a long time, i think people really were happier than i was most of the time and now i'm that paranoid guy who thinks there must always be a boogie in his nose? (a sadness boogie. the boogie of sadness.)
i have such a terminal grass-is-greener problem. and i think getting happier has more to do with kicking that than with anything else.
also, though, right now is hard. i may have a problem that makes me think i live in a constant state of exception where things are temporarily difficult but will get better when: we make more money, when this show closes, when i have a more fulfilling job, when the kid goes to college. i know better than to spend my life that way, but there's no getting over that this year might suck in a lot of ways.
but for right now, i'm going to go write for five minutes in a pretend voice, one that thinks i'm as happy as my friend. and we'll see how that goes.
why am i so convinced that other people are having more fun than i am? when i hear stories about people investing in themselves and getting happy, sometimes they make me despair. because i think i can't do that? because it doesn't work? because for a long time, i think people really were happier than i was most of the time and now i'm that paranoid guy who thinks there must always be a boogie in his nose? (a sadness boogie. the boogie of sadness.)
i have such a terminal grass-is-greener problem. and i think getting happier has more to do with kicking that than with anything else.
also, though, right now is hard. i may have a problem that makes me think i live in a constant state of exception where things are temporarily difficult but will get better when: we make more money, when this show closes, when i have a more fulfilling job, when the kid goes to college. i know better than to spend my life that way, but there's no getting over that this year might suck in a lot of ways.
but for right now, i'm going to go write for five minutes in a pretend voice, one that thinks i'm as happy as my friend. and we'll see how that goes.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
it's me. again.
there's a backdated post coming about the very latest hey-wait-now-it's-different. (preview, which will be a post view: fourteen months! is when the baby became a kid. all kid. what a kid.) i'll write it soon, but this one is burning a bigger hole in a more important pocket.
i've been drinking a lot in the evenings. this happens sometimes; it's happened other sometimes, and i've never been too worried. i started to just get the smallest amount worried, and then the thing that always happens happened: it stopped being fun. my sleep has been sucking. i think i have finally gotten enough beer. (it was like there was a very very dry beer sponge in there. the months of pregnancy and nursing--like i abstained while nursing--parched me in a way that could only be slaked by a couple of months of beer hoovering.)
and i got myself a few books, thinking i could do that in the nights instead. it turns out it's fun, just like i remember--like before i had netflix and a dvr and didn't quite know i could buy booze for myself. which is to say, before 25. remember that? remember having that bottle of scotch for, like, a year? and reading books and renting Important Films?
i read a book that made me, on one hand, sad because it was about someone doing her dream job. and also written in a way that made me think i would like this famous person, which somehow also made me sad because we are not going to be friends. more, though, that i am not going to have that thing--at least not my first thing, the ashland thing, the film career thing, the voice-overs-for-adult-cartoons thing. i will not have a career that involves a blooper reel, and to me that is a serious deal. i pick that. that is my first choice.
increasingly, i'm worried that my very valid second choice is nearly as much of a shot in the dark, an ice castle, but whatever.
the POINT IS, it also made me want to write again, really badly. so i might do some of that. i'm not making any promises, because i am too smart for that. (Things I Am Too Smart For: short list.) but i am also thinking about going to bed earlier and eating some green stuff and doing a few sit ups. you know, to see. just to see.
if this is all to shit in a month and i'm back to killing a triad of cheap beer each night, no fair laughing. i'm trying as hard as i can to figure, and there's a lot to figure. i'm finding a place for the six thousand wants that can't be assuaged. if you're wondering what i'm doing with ALL MY FREE TIME, it's that.
i've been drinking a lot in the evenings. this happens sometimes; it's happened other sometimes, and i've never been too worried. i started to just get the smallest amount worried, and then the thing that always happens happened: it stopped being fun. my sleep has been sucking. i think i have finally gotten enough beer. (it was like there was a very very dry beer sponge in there. the months of pregnancy and nursing--like i abstained while nursing--parched me in a way that could only be slaked by a couple of months of beer hoovering.)
and i got myself a few books, thinking i could do that in the nights instead. it turns out it's fun, just like i remember--like before i had netflix and a dvr and didn't quite know i could buy booze for myself. which is to say, before 25. remember that? remember having that bottle of scotch for, like, a year? and reading books and renting Important Films?
i read a book that made me, on one hand, sad because it was about someone doing her dream job. and also written in a way that made me think i would like this famous person, which somehow also made me sad because we are not going to be friends. more, though, that i am not going to have that thing--at least not my first thing, the ashland thing, the film career thing, the voice-overs-for-adult-cartoons thing. i will not have a career that involves a blooper reel, and to me that is a serious deal. i pick that. that is my first choice.
increasingly, i'm worried that my very valid second choice is nearly as much of a shot in the dark, an ice castle, but whatever.
the POINT IS, it also made me want to write again, really badly. so i might do some of that. i'm not making any promises, because i am too smart for that. (Things I Am Too Smart For: short list.) but i am also thinking about going to bed earlier and eating some green stuff and doing a few sit ups. you know, to see. just to see.
if this is all to shit in a month and i'm back to killing a triad of cheap beer each night, no fair laughing. i'm trying as hard as i can to figure, and there's a lot to figure. i'm finding a place for the six thousand wants that can't be assuaged. if you're wondering what i'm doing with ALL MY FREE TIME, it's that.
