Bravery

Another odd, random thought this morning, whilst coming into work.

I was pulling onto the lot and was struck by one of the female security guards guiding traffic into the garage. When I say struck I mean I noticed her, not that she beat me. She was rubbing her hands, as it is a bit cold, and was doing her job with a fairly stoic expression. She's someone I've seen in the building and it's very clear she has a Story. Thinking of all of this in a second or two, the next thought I had was interesting: "I like brave people."

Granted, doing one's job outside in the simply frigid conditions of 60 degrees may not seem the bravest thing, but it was her expression more than anything that I noticed. Then as I was parking I tried to get more specific about my thinking. Those who know me well know that nothing enrages me more than vagaries, except perhaps answering a question with a question, which will always result in me going for the throat. So then my next thought was a question - what, exactly, do I think is brave?

I guess it's a few things. One version of it is the person who "jumps", i.e. they see what they want (or doesn't want) and decides they are going to take the leap to change the situation. Whatever the personal cost, discomfort or sacrifice. It can take the form of the cross-country move, the mid-life career re-set, the ejection from the bad marriage, the coming out of the closet, etc. Or it can just doing something as simple as going to a bookstore on a rainy afternoon if you are wildly agoraphobic. I guess it's the kind of bravery where you allow your anxiety to exist, but not dominate you.

The other version I have seen is the more resting kind of brave. It's the mode where you know you are in a situation you can't change, for whatever external or internal reasons, and you make due in the best way you can, and put on the proverbial "brave face". It's tough, but it's not the fear or desperation-fueled bravery of the other kind. This kind is sort of methodology of life that makes people stay out of duty, or expectation, and involves (sometimes total) sacrifice of personal needs for the sake of the group, or just one loved one. It's not easy either. More of a stick-it-out thing. The rock that sits square in the middle of the roaring river.

I think I've lived in both states in different periods of time in my life. But I also know that at some point you have to weigh the pros vs. the cons in an unsentimental light, and perhaps see a third way. And that is the way of simply letting go, and trusting that it will all work out. And it's scary as all Hell.

But you can always rub your hands to keep them warm when you need to. No one can tell you not to do that.

Birthdays N' Stuff

It's the first time in 10 years that I am not going to send a forcibly chipper "Happy Birthday!" email. I don't know what's more upsetting; the fact I am not sending that email or the fact that I have been sending emails for over 10 years. I think I'm on year 14 of that. Ugh. I was going to spin some yarn about love that is lost in time, but I think I might just have to run to the bathroom and start moisturizing. I did love strongly though, once upon a time. I'm sure I will again. Right after I finish with this here botox injection... I want to look surprised when Love comes for me again...

This may sound harsh, but...

There is no shame accepting that someone doesn't love you as much as they are supposed to. Because then you can stop making yourself crazy trying to believe that you love them back as much as you are supposed to. That was a thought between the cup and the lip this morning, literally. Whenever I don't sleep well at night I begin to wonder what my brain is doing. I suspect more of this sort of thing. I'm 35. How did this happen?

Monday!

Rugby boot camp finally happened.

I am sore in places I have not been sore in since Coach James had his way with me 3rd form year, i.e. 21 friggin' years ago.

NYC

So I'm waiting for the new itunes to finish loading up. I have to say I'm not that thrilled about it. Apple made such a fuss over that "coverflow" thing, but something like sixty percent of my albums still have a blank square with two quarter or eighth notes, whatever those things are, as their only "art". For whatever reason itunes can't pull the artwork from its own store. Sorta BS since apple knows the more OCD of us MUST HAVE ALL THINGS THE SAME. But I am dredging up my DIY/Xerox artwork/The Beauty Is In The Seams personality from my adolescence to deal with that. I haven't really been that thrilled with any apple product of late: I have a new MacBook and I am not into the keys at all, and the screen sorta looks like crap already. Granted, I don't want a PC either, but I sure would like something that combines apple's design sensibility with Windows' just "git 'er done" behaviors. I know apple claims they don't crash, but that's bs since this thing was crashy like right out of the box.

So, anyway, what am I thinking about this morning? NYC. It's getting a little colder here in LA, and that makes me think about running around NYC in various numbers of layers. I guess my only thought about NYC this morning, oddly, considering everything that happened to me there, and so much of it being totally awful, is that NYC really is a giant playground that lets you not grow up as long as you want not to grow up. It's a town that fosters this strange double immaturity/self-reliance. Something about hearing Regina Spektor's "Twenty Years of Snow" this morning as I type is also forming this impression. I didn't spend 20 years in NYC, but I did spend six strange ones there. I had tons of fun, but also tons and tons of not-fun. Granted, I wasn't shooting heroin and turning tricks in the South Bronx, but that was mostly because those activities involve effort - finding heroin is not easy and the South Bronx is a haul.

I have often remarked that in many ways my life between Choate and LA passed as a strange dream, and much of it I truly do not remember. I do have some great pals from Brown, and I have two great friendships that were created in NYC. I had a third, but she died. Suddenly and strangely. I suppose death is always strange, and I am certainly not the first person to note that. Time is so weird. I guess that's why I'm thinking about the fostered immaturity thing. In NYC, no one looks at you sideways if you are wearing the ame thing you wore to that punk rock show twenty years beforehand, as long as you are in the right part of town, which is always the East Village for our kind.

I could ramble on more, but I have to hop in the shower to get ready for work, I've dawdled and lost a lot of time.

Time.

I'm having a minor meltdown.

That sounds dramatic.

I'm having a small freak-out.

I need a few more hours in the day, and I also need one extra day per weekend. So, say 27 hour days with 8 day weeks. This probably means I will have to move to Mars or possibly one of the recently discovered extra-solar planets. As we all know how I feel about moving, that's not likely to be happening anytime soon.

I think I might just be a little frayed. There's been a lot going on in the past couple of weeks. I always forget that things can build up slowly, creep up on you really, and you have acclimated to the steady level of crazy; so much so that you are now unhappy. I think I remember some line from some movie somewhere making the analogy of boiling a frog along those lines. Turn up the heat slowly enough and the little guy will just sit in there until you boil him alive. Something like that.

Also? Eveyone's crabby, and no one is dealing with their stress well. I need to eat something. I only ran a mile today. But I did do a little over 5 yesterday.

Facebook

I think Facebook should have more than one option to describe your connections to another member. I do. I know there is a way you can describe your connection to a person after you become "friends" on the site, but at that point you're already "friends" and then putting in the comment "I actually don't know this person very well, but I think he's friends with this other guy in my department and I'm worried about offending people so I'm just agreeing to this. He loves the fax machine, which I think is kinda weird/lame since you can totally just scan and email things now." seems pointless to me. I mean, you've said you're friends. You've said it out loud, into the e-universe. Putting in that sort of descriptor after the fact just makes you look indecisive. Or that you are a waffler. Perhaps even an indecisive waffler. But I may have a solution.

I think there should be a "sorta friends" option. As in, "I like this girl, we totally hit it off at that party, and I may want to ring her up at some point if I need to get a hold of several cases of soda at a hefty discount since she's a production coordinator, but I just don't know if I ever really want to speak to her again." And then maybe there should be an option to attach, like, a LOLKatz or something after to the announcement to the e-world that this new particular electronic umbilicus is now in place. So your peeps can know you're all fun like that.

Or maybe some sort of pull down for when you re-connect with people from high school. I mean, there's the obvious ones: "lab partner" or "drama club" or "unresolved homosexual affair". That sort of thing. We all think we were very special and noticeable in high school, but we must face the fact that it simply was a long time ago, and we may or may not remember each other exactly as we were, or how well we actually knew one another. Hindsight is not only 20/20, it also tends to be rosy. Unless you were one of those people who was totally unpopular and got teased all the time and had no friends, and in that case you aren't going to be adding a lot of people from high school anyway. But with my pull-downs (pul-downz? pds?) so much confusion and head-scratching can be avoided.

I need to think about this more, but the faxing guy just sent me a facebook email that I have to answer. Because we're "friends".