Syndrome

My mother left me an urgent message earlier this week. She had been watching the Discovery Channel and heard of a syndrome that she thought both my sister and I could have. So I Googled the disease and it's main symptom is a particular body type.

So, uhm, thanks for looking out, Mom.

Songwriter

I wish I would have written that life is a highway song. Because even though I can't stand that song, that dude is rolling in the dough. I mean, it has been covered and re-covered by like 80 different artists/performers and it is always on a commercial or featured in a movie. That guy was a genius. One classic annoying song and he is set for life.

Life is a highway songwriter, I salute you.

Ready or not...

When it came to hide and seek, I was a rockstar. I could find magnificent hiding spots where no one would ever discover me. I wouldn't giggle or move or make any noise when the seeker came for the hidden. I remember playing hide and seek once when I was about 10 or 11 and my spot was so good that everyone else gave up. I eventually revealed myself only to find that the other players had all taken a nap. The game was over and I had won, I guess.

See what I never got was that, sometimes, the point was to be found. Part of the fun was being caught. I didn't understand that then.

As an adult, sometimes it feel like I am still playing the game. I have devised an excellent hiding place and I can stay there, undisturbed, not giving myself away, probably forever. Lately, though, staying hidden isn't as satisfying. Revealing myself feels scary but I think I am ready.

Game on.

Quandry

Really weird, missing something you never had...

physiology

Oh eye twitch. I don't appreciate you enough when you are gone. But when you return, how I do hate you.

Thank you other witty people.

Humor is the crutch of the plain.

In cahoots with Oprah

Dude. I was totally going to rant about my hair today. Then I went online to the Oprah and low and behold if she and Chris Rock aren't having a show about Black women and their hair. I was stunned to say the least.



I pretty much detest my hair. My accursed, no good, bane-of-my-existence hair. I am ridiculously close to going to the Cost Cutters and having them shave it all off. It annoys me at all times and for all seasons. And I notice a marked change in my mood when I am having the rare good hair day. I feel better about myself when my hair has been de-bigged and and I again have contact with my scalp.



My hair is nappy, straight, curly and kinky. The straight parts are embracked by the trifecta of nappy, curly and kinky causing severe breakage, usually in the back of my head, which is often exacerbated if I am stressed or if I rub my head against my pillow, the back of a jacket or a couch and/or chair.



I would get a weave or wear a wig, but I am too classless to pull off such a look. I know that I would rountinely be scratching my head and move the wig around or pull it off at inopportune times. And I have had braids before. Once in high school, one braid fell out as I was bending over to go in my backpack for a pencil.



I grant you that the hatred of the huge pile of hair on my head is not that big of an issue. I know that were I to lose all of my hair because of an illness that I would be sad and wish that I had appreciated the hot mess while I had it, but I am not in that situation right now. I am in a situation where my hair gets bigger and badder (and not the cool version of bad, but the malevolent meaning) with each passing day. My hair truly has a mind of it's own and I think it is intriguing that Chris Rock has seen the impact that the hair has on his daughters and is trying to do something about it. My father also tried. Once he told me and several others how my hair made me look like a black Shirley Temple.

So, maybe that isn't the same thing.

Anyway, you work with what you got, and my hope is that at some point in my life, my hair and I will agree to disagree. Until then, I think I just might be heading to the Cost Cutters.

Useless

When you are regularly asked to do pointless grunt work, it messes with your brain. I just had a chat with a coworker and we were joking that we should be grateful for this mundane work. I said: "I shall pray to the god of shame, hopelessness and uselessness praising him for the opportunity to let yet another part of my brain atrophy from underuse." But it made me realize that this is yet another reason I am not content with my work. I don't feel like I am using my brain the way it is meant to bend and for better or worse, and it seems to me, mostly worse, I take EVERYTHING personally, so this sort of routine work can start to make you feel that the only purpose you serve is to do purposeless work.

It is always impressive to me the people who are routinely asked to perform such tasks but who maintain a cheerful attitude. I think these people must be able to find a purpose outside of their job. They are content on the inside and so being asked to do the thankless task by a person who doesn't want to do the dirty work, doesn't touch their sense of self-worth. I would like to be one of these people because my entire job is pointless. I think it would help me if I could go to some zen-like place when someone asks me for a stapler or if I could look up some information for them, information they themselves would have found in the same time it took them to ask me to do it. It is not worth it to be so upset about everything here all the time. I am doing the work. I just have to keep trying to do it and find other ways to feel good. Interestingly, this helped: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/200910-omag-oprah-interviews-jay-z. It was a really good interview. Jay-Z is crazy smart and I was impressed by a lot of his insights.

Now back to the useless

32

I have decided that getting older gets a bum rap.

I have always liked my birthday even though I don't celebrate it. I love it. I love getting older. Another year that you have survived. More things you have learned and seen and experienced. Ultimately, it would mean more wisdom and inner peace and then the glory ages when you get to say whatever crazy thing you want and people just have to take it because you are old.

What I don't like is feeling regret. That I have aged so far and have done so little. Or that the little I have done has been a waste. Looking back at my life and seeing my mistakes and what I missed breaks my heart. And makes me plead for forgiveness.

Friday I turned 32. The weather was overcast and cool and it even rained a little bit which I like because it is usually overcast and rainy on my birthday. There were a few years in the middle when it was all day sunshine and it just seemed wrong. It was a pretty uneventful day except for me and the kabillion other people who also gained a year over the weekend, but it meant a lot to me.

I feel like it is unrealistic of me to think that this year I will become some other person or that I can have a some miraculous change. What I do want is to just keep trying to grow and become a more complete person. To figure out who I am and be that and have peace. So that when I get uber old, I can go to town on some fools.

Random for Saturday

I am upset. I wonder how long it will be that seeing someone from my former life will make me upset and spiral into hurt and anger and tears. That gets old fast and I am tired of feeling that way. I feel like my chest and back are splitting apart and everything makes me want to cry. I wanted to cry telling a friend about an upcoming meeting. And I wanted to cry about my delicious margharita and I wanted to cry seeing people I used to hang out with spending time together. I wonder how they could have chosen each other and neglected me. And I am upset that I lost those 10 years. That I have physical symptoms because of the choices I made. I could cry for years for that.

I told a friend about my dad. About how there isn't too much comfort to me about his having died. And she said, "it's like you lost him twice." And while that doesn't make me happy, it helps to have someone acknowledge that. And it makes me sad.

I feel lonely. But not for lots of people to be around. To be understood.

I just broke up with the facebook. I know that the reason I was always on it was because I wanted to be connected and it was a way to do that without having to really be connected but I didn't feel good about it. The break up is awkward though, because I really liked the games I was playing on it and I had a great sense of accomplishment looking at my farm on the farmville and all of my weapons on Mafia Wars.

What I miss most is peace. It was my promise to myself as a child and I haven't kept it.

I think I need some more sleep.



I think I am going a touch crazy.

Song from Junior High

To the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know it"...

When you're miserable and you know it pluck a string
When you're miserable and you know it start to sing
And ya sing
And ya pluck
And ya pluck
And ya sing
And it doesn't really help a stinking thing.

I had mad skills, even then.

Dear Collard Greens

I love you. You make me so incredibly happy. Like when you are made very well, you can literally transport me to another place. Another place of pure light and beauty and tranquility and non-annoying things. The complete opposite of what this day was. A day where I felt that I couldn't possibly stand to answer one more person's question about the same thing I had said eight thousand times earlier. A day that ended with my giving a 15-second presentation to a room full of professors with: "So far so good," and a thumbs-up sign. I am getting to the point where I start laughing when I talk to some of these people because I am so frustrated and so incredulous that no one ever listens to what I tell them.

I know it isn't their fault. I know they are frustrated and that my job, for which I get paid and can pretty much support myself, is to help them. But I think that, as it turns out, I am not a helper. I am operating on less and less patience. I think I need to keep a zen garden at my desk or candles or someone who could repeat a lovely mantra to me when the murderous rage refuses to ebb. Someone like Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp could totally sit next to the huge Bucky blanket in my office and chant a blood-pressure lowering mantra. He could sing it even. I feel almost certain that I could be a better person then. Probably. If he brought food. And drinks. And was only repeating the mantra for one day, the day that was also my last day workig there. Then I would be the most amazing employee ever. Oh, Johnny. You always solve everything. You and the collard greens.

Dead Thumb

This, I believe, is the seventh plant I have killed since I moved into my apartment a year and a half ago. This one was a gift from a friend who had a beautiful, thriving rubber tree plant. She'd had to cut it back and was giving out shoots so that others could start their own. She gave one to me. This is what remains. It survived three months in my tender care. There is some green at the top, so you know, there is that.

I have a great desire for there to be something living, either than myself, in my apartment, but I don't appear to sustain any other life there but my own. In fairness to myself, I do have one green plant that isn't dead quite yet. But I am not resting too much hope on it. I water, I don't water, I sun, I don't sun. I look for plants that don't require sun, considering the lack of it in my home. Plants that are labeled for the exact conditions in which I live. And shortly there after, they are croaksville. I had one plant which sizzled when you added water. Like the sound that you hear when you add milk to Rice Krispies. It was all spikey and I had named it Clay on account of its leaves looking like his hair when he was fancied up on the American Idol. So I even did the chatting thing with the blasted things and they still bit it.

I have some fake plants, but that just isn't the same. THERE SHOULD BE ACTUAL LIFE, carried by loving hands, not my dead thumb. I hope no horticultural society comes after me for my many kills. None of them were intentional. Maybe I could plead my case in the presence of a kind judge, who also can grow nothing but mold and dirt in empty pots. Surely someone understands.

Memory Lane

The following is something I wrote when I was just starting college. I found it when I was searching for some sheet music. Apparently, I was projecting my stress about waiting for my financial aid onto an imaginary amphibian.

Once upon a time, there was a little frog who had no money. You may be thinking that this is not a problem as frogs do not need money, but this frog wanted to go to college, which everybody knows takes money, so it was a problem that the frog had none. In order to fulfill his dream, the frog went to the admissions office of Pond School and applied for financial aid. Happily the frog received a financial aid award but his problems had really just begun.

A new softwater program had caused problems with the disbursement of financial aid and the frog had yet to receive any money. He was always going to the financial aid lily pad to find out when he would get his money so he could live out his dreams. He didn't have the support of any of his friends of family since none of them ever went to college and there was no precedent for such things, but the frog had high hopes. He wanted to do more than hop and he didn't want to just end up a fancy dish of frog legs so he kept going to the lily pad in a hope that one day his money for college would be there. The director of the lily pad financial aid said that the frog would just have to be patient. Every was working on the problem and they really wanted him to have the money since they had never seen a frog in college.

Usually they just have fish in their school.

Dear Soap and Water,

I wish more people would be your friends. You are pleasant and everyone feels happier when you have been in the area. You are the only friend who can be used and is happy with that; as if it were your sole purpose for being. It makes me sad when I meet people who are not acquainted with you in any way. And while you are way super great, it seems like it is hard for some people to get close to you. I mean, you are completely available; you are such a GIVER. But I admit that I do feel kind of awkward introducing you to others. I want them to know you, but I am just not sure how to express that. Maybe this letter is a start.

Love,
Sherry

Ode to Iced Caramel Macchiato

Sweet iced goodness
What was my life before?
Your sheer deliciousness
I cannot ignore.

Though you cost
an exorbitant price
No other Starbucks drink
could ever taste quite so nice.
(Except for the white mocha, the java frappuccino, the caramel apple cider, and the shaken iced tea lemonade.)

Your classic vanilla syrup
The espresso so fine,
The cool ice and milk;
For a mere $4-5, you are all mine.

The very best part of you
Through my straw are slurped
Luscious chunks of caramel
That could yield delightful burps.

So until the time we are together again
I will miss you a whole lotto
And hope that soon to have you in my arms
My one and only caramel macchiato.

Letter on Defectivity

Dear 21 Jumpstreet,

Thank you for teaching me so many life lessons this past weekend, including being molested isn't the same as having leukemia (that is a pretty close quote of dialogue, no lie) and fat girls who don't get dates are threats to the prom. And when the afro-mentioned girl DOES show up to the prom, it is only to light the joint on fire. And then be pitied.

My time Sunday was not wasted. Sadly, I mean that.

The thing is, even though the episode about the girl being sexually abused by her father was WAY dramatic, when Sherilyn Fenn (who has aged well, I have to say. I mean, that episode was over 20 years old and she still pretty much looks like that) is walking down the beach talking to my love Johnny Depp about how they told her that it wasn't like she had cancer or was going to die, it was an aha! moment for me. I was appalled at first that they could say that but then I think I understood what it meant.

Even though this terrible thing had happened to her, it didn't mean that she was defective. It didn't mean there was something inherent inside that couldn't be addressed or healed. She would struggle, she would need time, but she was still whole and worthy and good and lovable.

There was a cure.

I am awed at how much of my life has been shaped by television. And while there are huge chunks of time I wasted watching made up life and scenarios, sometimes it helped. Sometimes it does teach you and bring you some comfort. And anything which acts as a vehicle to bring Johnny Depp into my home is essentially divine.

So here is to hoping that Hulu puts the other seasons of 21 Jumpstreet on its website. And that all of us realize that when it's hopeless, a decision's what we need. We better be ready to Jump!

21 Jumpstreet!


Love, Sherry

p.s. I still love you Johnny. Even though you kept saying okey dokey. I was delighted to have spent the day with you.

Tuesday

Today was full of irrtitation. Not unlike most other days, but I had a lot to get done and a lot of chumps were being annoying. And then it smelled like Raid in my office and I could taste it and floating carcinogens are no fun.

One of my swell friends suggested I do a blog. I like this idea and so am jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Year 2000, check me out!

This is how people end up pale, socially awkward and weighing 9000 pounds. Right now, I am typing this lying down after having eaten pancakes for dinner. And I don't feel bothered enough by that last sentence to do anything about it.

So, there. Post no. 1. Please don't give up. It will get better. I think the pancakes have swelled inside and there is no room for insight. But there is this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmjf_ol_3yo.