Dreams

I’ve been having some fairly obvious dreams lately. Like the ones where I’m working at Barnes & Noble again, and for some reason I’m shopping at a different Barnes & Noble, looking through the sci-fi section for a particular book. And then I’m naked, and I’m running through the store, and the manager tells me she’s reprorting my “provocative behavior” to her boss, and I just keep running.

Or the ones where I’m someplace with my friends, and we’re all having fun, and suddenly they’ve all vanished and I can’t find them.

Makes sleep a bit less restful. Clearly I’m not taking the right care of myself.

A Touch of Mirin

I’m a creature of habit.

Sunday night is nice dinner night for me. I try to have something extra delicious – preferably something I cook myself , ideally something I haven’t made before – to nourish myself for the week ahead. Tonight I made sesame chicken fingers with soba noodles. It was delicious and easy to prepare. And I learned a little something in the process.

It’s important to take time for yourself. Not just to rest and unwind, but to do something nice for yourself – to give yourself a little treat for body and spirit. It gives you something to remember, something to look forward to, something besides the workaday grind to call your own.

I’m trying to remember that.

Fight or Flight

I don’t expect good things from my relatives. While most of them are nice people, they believe any number of things that are almost diametrically opposed to what I believe. I don’t need them to agree, but they seem to need me to agree. Some of it is the evangelical desire to convert the unbeliever, to return the prodigal to the fold. I understand that. I just wish they would find some way to let it go.

When they try to convert or convince me, I feel trapped. I feel as if they are trying to shove me back in a tiny little box that I fought hard to get out of. I’m sure they find their belief systems enriching and meaningful, and I don’t begrudge them that. I used to feel the same, and I’m not so arrogant as to say my way is better for anyone but me. So I don’t mean that their beliefs and values are restrictive or small-minded or beneath me. Those beliefs  just don’t work for who I am – they don’t help me make sense of my life, they don’t enrich or empower me. They hold me back and down, and they make it easier for me to indulge some of my worst tendencies.

That’s why I keep my distance. That’s why I wear a mask around them. That’s why they don’t get to see who I really am – because that’s not who they want to see, and that’s not who they’ll accept, and it’s not worth fighting them for space I can steal.

One reason I love my family of choice so much more than my blood relatives is that they love me for who I am, not who I am in relation to them. They don’t love me because I’m their son or their brother or their nephew – they love me because of who I am, myself.  They love me because I have qualities they like and respect and cherish, not because of the luck of the genetic draw that put me in their laps.

I wish I didn’t feel that way. I see my relatives at family gatherings, and they’re all happy and warm and cozy, and I’m the outsider freak in the one place everyone is supposed to feel safe. I have to keep my mouth shut and play along. I have to smile politely and not rock the boat. I don’t like to admit it, but it hurts.

I’m trying to stand up for myself more. I have no problem doing so at work – if anything, I probably need to dial it back some – but in my personal life I’m still working out how to find the middle ground between “whatever you say” and “screw yourself, those are my teeth in your throat and they’ll stay there until you stay down”. I’m too reactive sometimes.

Starting Something

It’s no secret – here or at work – that I’m not wild about the way my employers do things. (Relax, this isn’t about that.) Part of my long chat with my new boss the other day was about that. She generally agrees, but there’s not much either of us can do about it.

Finding myself with a bit of extra time the other night when I was asked to stay a couple of hours after my shift, I started writing down some of my thoughts on management, leadership, and customer service. Damned if the thing isn’t snowballing in my head. I’ve been supervising people and working in customer service for most of my career, so I have a few thoughts on these subjects. I’m giving serious thought to writing a book about them. Maybe it won’t be the next “Seven Habits” or “Who Moved My Cheese?”, but it’s something to do. And who knows? Maybe others can benefit.

What To Do

I spent about two hours this afternoon meeting with my new boss. (Another reorg. These things happen.) This was after I spent twenty minutes convincing myself not to just walk out on my job.

It’s gotten worse lately, and there’s more bad to come. I’m not going to go into the details because I’m trying not to dwell on it. It’s been eating me up again lately. I sleep a couple of hours, toss and turn for an hour or two, then drift off to another cycle. I’m tired and unmotivated and constantly oscillating between terrified and furious.

Enough. I can’t dwell on it at home. I’ll deal with it at work and leave it at the door when I fingerprint out. I won’t let it depress me. I can’t run on weekdays because there’s no light. But I can exercise indoors. I can’t make my job any less hellish, but I can find ways to make myself happy and store the sunshine against the storm. I can step up my job search and give myself a little more hope.

Comfort Food

My grandfather passed away earlier this week. My parents drove out from Kentucky for the services, and just arrived in town this evening. Mom called when they arrived in town, just as my crock pot was almost finished making a pot roast with celery, pearl onions, baby carrots, and new potatoes.

Mom called to tell me that the family would be gathering at my aunt’s house tomorrow for lunch. My aunt is making a pot roast – we can all make sandwiches.

I laughed, and told Mom I was almost done making my pot roast. She laughed – she’s staying with another sister, who had made pot roast last night.

I guess we have our traditions after all.

Just Stuff I Made Up

My Dad doesn’t care for  fiction. He doesn’t read it, doesn’t get it. When he was a kid and he had to write book reports, he  says he wrote them about science books. The irony of that particular fiction isn’t lost on me, although I can’t savor it as much as I’d like.

“It’s not true,” he says. “It’s not real, it didn’t happen.”

Maybe it’s not factual. But it’s as true as anything else in the world to me.  It’s not just escape – it’s showing you the world you live in with a wonderful new twist. I’ve learned a lot from reading about stuff that never happened.

And as much as it made him furious – I still remember how he’d spit “imagination” at me with the same scorn he reserved for homosexuality and other sins – I kept reading it and writing it and loving it. It still hurts that something I love dearly is beneath his contempt, and that’s one more barrier between him and I. I’m willing to take that tradeoff.

Not That It’s Any Of Your Business

One of my favorite things about this time of year is that I get to wear my overcoat.

Seriously. I love that thing. I think it’s very cool: just a plain black wool coat, roughly ankle length. A pocket for each hand, and a big pocket inside you could stow your scarf in. No epaulets, no straps, no doodads. A couple of buttons up front and a four on each cuff, all black. I guess it’s the next best thing to wearing a long black cape. I may well move someplace cold just to wear it more.

I get a lot of compliments on it. I also get a lot of people who think the overcoat is overkill. I understand where they’re coming from: you don’t see a lot of overcoats here, and it does look bulky. But it’s actually not much warmer than a windbreaker. I have a fingertip-length black leather jacket that’s quite a bit heavier. I tend to get a little annoyed with the criticism: partly it reminds me of my Mom, who still thinks she needs to dress me and doesn’t see how that infringes on my hard-won and over-dear autonomy. Partly I’m just vain, and fond of my stylish coat.

I was out running some errands and getting a bit of holiday shopping done, and since it seemed cold I put on my favorite coat.  I took it off when the sun came out, and when I noticed that I was a little too warm in the stores to wear it. (It’s not so much fun to carry folded over my arm.) But the rain made a comeback and I put it on to keep from getting soaked on my way across the grocery store parking lot. I passed a woman getting out of her car who said, “Are you going to Minnesota with that thing?”

I normally don’t take fashion critiques from random strangers. I usually ignore them with a frown, or give them one of my cold “So very kind of you to say so” smiles. This time I decided to make the offense fit the crime.

I smiled at her and laughed a little. “It’s actually a lot lighter than it looks,” I said, and went on my merry way.

She was just making a little joke, albeit at my expense. Am I really so worried about the opinions of a lady I’ve never seen before and likely never will again that I have to defend my dignity? She’s just making a little conversation, trying to be friendly. Why not respond in kind? Why not make her smile a little instead of slapping her down or treating her like she doesn’t exist?

See? Eventually I catch on.

Best-Laid

I’m a planner. I’ve been using a personal organizer since I was in college. I went electronic as soon as Palm came on the market. I like giving my life a sense of order – entrusting my schedule and plans and to-do lists to something more permanent and reliable than my memory. This allows me to get a lot more done and keeps me feeling like I’m in control of my life. It’s been good for my career and my health.

But it’s not always an asset. For all my planning and pigeonholing, I’m still an artist. I create things – ideally beautiful and worthwhile things, but not always – from nothing. And while it’s tempting to plan that, too, it’s not always the best way to proceed. It’s stifling: I think the best writing grows organically and the best writers are something like bonsai masters, shaping and pruning the story as it flows into its natural form. Every time I’ve ever tried to plan a story I’ve gotten too involved in the elegance of the plan, and the story came out stunted and stilted.

That’s part of what I’m trying to do next door at One Draft: let the story write itself, let it follow its own logic to its own conclusion. Doesn’t always work. But I think it’s worth working on, if for no other reason than to free my Muse from the box I try to keep her in. I’m at my best and happiest unfettered and exuberant.

The problem is that makes it harder to start when inspiration doesn’t strike. My Muse is no more reliable than anyone else”s. But that’s not enough to sustain a career writing. I need to practice every day, inspiration or no inspiration. That takes work, which for me means planning and forethought. That means thinking about what I want to write, not letting it write itself. It’s the best way I know to deal with that big blank page staring back at me.

So I’m working on finding a solution to that.

Storm and Satie

I like a good storm. The wind, the cold, the rain – they remind me of home. I love coming home out of the cold into a nice cozy house, especially if the scent of pot roast in a slow cooker greets me at the door. (I suppose being greeted at the door by the woman I love would be better, but I haven’t tried that one yet. So for now pot roast wins.)

Tonight there’s a nice one going. Usually storms here are too warm. I’ve lived here twenty years now and I ‘m still disappointed to step out into a warm rain. But tonight it’s cold, windy, and rainy. My cat is curled up under my little Christmas tree near the window. Satie is playing quietly on the stereo. And I just had pot roast two weeks ago, so tonight I’m cooking chicken breasts in foil pouches with celery, pearl onions, and new potatoes.

I wrote a little poetry (see below). I’m going to pet my cat and do some reading before bed. It’s going to be a good night.