Why John Mayer Irritates the Crap Out of Me

Posted by diana

While I’m shredding pop songs, let’s talk about John Mayer. It’s not the ridiculously offensive Playboy interview he did. It’s not that he seems to sniff out drama like a bloodhound sniffs out escaped convicts. No. It’s this song:

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

So, basically – people say you don’t do shit while you whine about how much the world sucks, but really, you say, you do! You’re waiting for the world to change. You’re not going to do any work to make it change, no. Because you’re clueless and so you don’t even try. So. Yeah. You’re deep and meaningful and you want to whine about it.

So, no. I wouldn’t say you or your friends are the least bit misunderstood. I think you’re pretty darned well understood. You don’t stand for anything. You say it yourself. You don’t have the means to rise above. You don’t take a stand because you don’t think you’re capable of it. Which really means you don’t care enough to do anything, because I’ll bet you’re capable of making it to the gym to workout, or making it to a party to have fun with all those other folks who are waiting for the world to change.

You do, however, feel that you have every right to whine about the things you don’t like. But no obligation to do anything. Because it’s so much more fun to sit around feeling superior and meaningful. You’re like MFA students. Annoying as crap, always writing about the anti-edenic post moderns concept of the blahblahblah and how awful your lives are. You’re brats with entitlement issues. Do you whine about how much effort it is to brush your teeth, too?

Keep waiting. Just keep on waiting, and complaining. Because the world is going to change, and it’s going to change in directions you don’t like. And, on the off chance it actually does get changed in a way that pleases you, it won’t be you who gets any of the credit. Because you didn’t do any of the work. One day your generation is going to rule the population, but you aren’t going to be a part of it.

Gods. Songs like this make me wish I’d been born in time to be a hippie.

Ridiculous Dating Expectations

Posted by diana

There’s this song, you may have heard it. It has this line in it that I would totally have loved when I was 19 and stupid. Here’s the offending chorus:

Who doesn’t long for someone to hold

Who knows how to love you without being told

Somebody tell me why I’m on my own

If there’s a soulmate for everyone

You want to know why you’re on your own? This line, this line is why you’re on your own:

Who knows how to love you without being told

You’re on your own because you’re a poor communicator. You’re on your own because you’re lazy and you aren’t willing to do the work. Because you want the guy (or girl) you’re dating to do all the heavy lifting for you. You want them to read your mind and do everything you want without ever being told. And you know what? That’s idiotic. And unfair. Think about it. Would you like it if someone expected you to cater to their wishes but never told you what those wishes were?

You can’t expect anyone else to read your mind. You can expect them to listen when you tell them what you want. It may sound trite, but communication really is the key. If you tell the people you date, “Hey, I really like it when you sneak up behind me and kiss my neck,” guess what? They’ll start sneaking up behind you and kissing your neck. Or, if you tell them, “When I’m upset, I need you to hold me,” they’ll try to do that. You may have to remind them a few times (after nearly four years together, J finally does this last one without me asking. The neck kissing was easy).

And here’s the secret – if you do tell your partner what you like, eventually, down the line, you will have a partner who can read your mind. Because they really know you. J is really good, most of the time, at reading me. And he knows what to do to make me feel loved, because I told him and he paid attention. And when he does it, I respond. I let him know it’s working. So he’ll keep doing it.

You can have a partner who knows how to love you, but you have to do the work.

/end rant

Sometimes Safety is a Golden Retriever

Posted by diana

(I really, really debated whether or not to post this. Then I realized, I’m probably the only one who cares, so why not? I’m going to preface this by saying my father apologized to me. A few years ago, of his own volition, he apologized to me for the way he behaved when I was a child.)

I tried EMDR for the first time the other day. The therapist had me think about a situation that makes me anxious in my life now, that makes me want to run away. And then she asked me to think of another situation when I felt the same way.

So many moments come to mind when she asks me to think of a time I wanted to escape. All of them, all of them, with my parents. The one I settle on, which is no surprise to me, as I’ve settled on it before in my writing, is a fight between my parents. My father is yelling at my mother, I don’t know why. She’s crying and then yelling back, her voice desperate and raw. I’m hiding on the stairway, out of sight near the top. I can’t really see them, just the tops of their heads, an overhead view nearly.

At that moment, the therapist asks “What do you feel?”

“My hands feel small,” I tell her. My hands and arms feel small to me, like the hands and arms of a five year old. It’s the strangest thing.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

I half laugh, disparagingly, at myself. “I keep repeating the dog’s name in my head, over and over and over.”

“What was the dog’s name?”

“Bryce.” And suddenly I’m crying. I had no idea her name would do that to me. But I feel this rush of grief, tying into a knot at the base of my throat.

“Where is Bryce?”

“Next to me, on the stairs. I have my arm around her.” I pause. “She died when I was five. She was my best friend. She made me feel safe.”

“So she was your best friend, the only one who made you feel safe, the only stable thing in your life…”

“Yes.”

“And then she died.”

And suddenly, I understand. When Bryce died, there was no more safety for me. There was no safe place I could go, no one who would always protect me. The one reliable thing in my life was gone. All I had left was the turbulence between my parents. No Bryce to hide with me at the top of the stairs while my parents fought. No Bryce to hold on to.

That was the first time my parents sent me to therapy. When I was five. I was depressed. No, Depressed, with a big D. Because Bryce died and I was alone.

A Sketch of Bryce

Sketching to Short Circuit Perfectionism

Posted by diana

I’m stalling out on the story I’ve been working on (the Troy story, for Swan_Tower). Not because I don’t know what happens next, I do. It’s that whole “It must be perfect, oh my god, it isn’t perfect, I must waste away of consumption and die now!” thing. You know, that thing.

So I’m sketching. To give my brain a break. To let my subconscious run the show for a while. To do something creative in which I have a lot less invested so if the end result sucks, it’s completely okay. And if it doesn’t work, well. It will have been more fun than putting in commas and taking them out again.

So, look! Sketches!

A Story: My Parents, Meeting

Posted by diana

They actually had a meet cute. My mom was a freshman, come from a strict Catholic Italian Massachusetts neighborhood to the lax hippydom of Reed College in the 60s. My father was a senior, and a dorm advisor, and a theatre major about to embark on his senior thesis: directing a play.

As a dorm advisor, my dad got a lookbook with pictures of all the incoming freshmen and, of course, he noticed my mom. Picture the scene: Tall slender senior, cute and wearing glasses (which tells you he’s intellectual – and, actually, in this case tells you half of where my bad eyesight came from). Any rate. Back to the scene:

He’s in his dorm room –  door open so that any of his incoming frosh can get his attention – flipping through the look book. He stops at the photo of a dark haired Italian girl, dark hair completely covering one side of her face. Very Veronica Lake.

A friend & fellow dorm advisor stops by, “Hey, Larry. Get a move on. We’ve got a meeting with the Dean of Students in 10 minutes.” Friend looks over his shoulder to see the picture he’s staring at. “Cute. You going to look her up?”

My dad: “What? No. She’s a freshman. Too young. Besides, it’s not like I have any time.”

Fateful words, those. In the film world, that seals his fate right there. And, indeed, skip forward a bit and…

We’re watching my 18 year old mother and some girlfriends walking together. They stop at a bulletin board in their dorm. On it there’s a notice for auditions for a play.

“You going to try out?” one asks.

“Of course!” answers another. “We should all go to the audition together! It will be fun.”

My shy mother, half intrigued, half embarassed, laughs. “I don’t know…”

“Oh, come on, Elaine!”

My mother laughs and gives in, “Oh, all right. But I’ll never get picked.”

Equally fateful words. Because of course she gets picked. Neither of her friends make it into the play, but she lands the role of the ingenue. The love interest for the main character. And why not? After all, when my father looks at her there’s something about her that just feels right for the part.

You Can Never Go Home…

Posted by diana

I’ll be visiting my parents this weekend for the first time since April.Except it truly doesn’t seem that long ago to me. It feels like I was just down there.

My mom really wants me to visit more often. She keeps saying how nice it was when I was visiting every other month last year. But I can’t do that. I did it, last year, because of her cancer. Because I wanted to be with her and help her. And because I was terrified and just wanted to cling to her…

All my life, my parents have been my focus. Their story, their narrative has been the one that defined my world. And I’m coming to understand how much of that narrative is fictional. Also, that I really need to be living my own life. Creating my own narrative. Really, you ought to be the main character in your life. Not just a spear carrier.

 

And the angels sang…

Posted by diana

PUPPY!

Ahem.

We adopted a dog.

Back at the end of March I predicted that it would take me six months of steady campaigning to convince Jason we should adopt a dog. In truth, it only took five months. We adopted Arthur/Ragnar at the end of August. He’s part mastiff, possibly part boxer or lab, and at the moment he’s snoring, crashed out on the floor by my feet.

He’s a smart pup, though a bit skittish. We’re working on that and seeing major improvements.

You know what the trick was? To convincing Jason? Finding a big enough dog. Which makes sense when you consider that the only dog he has ever liked is a friend’s Great Dane.

Meet Ragnar, named in honor of a Norse pirate-king:

Ragnar hiding behind the driver’s seat of my car.
Sprawled on the kitchen floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In case you were wondering, he’s at most 10 months old and weighs 75lbs. We’re hoping he’ll at least top 100lbs by the time he’s full grown.