Spider-fearin’ Saturdays

Anybody know of a way to de-spider one’s belongings before a move?  I swear that I relocated a particular type of spider (a small colony in fact, is how it seemed, volume-wise) from the house I briefly lived in, in Orange County, to the apartment I’ve been in for the last 5 years.  I had not seen these thick-legged, nickel-size-ish, black creatures before living in the O.C. house, and it just seems like a big coincidence that I would move into an apartment that just HAPPENED to have the exact same kind of spider as that, back here in L.A.

I don’t like to kill spiders, but this is a case of personal sanity.  I have a spider phobia.  I like who spiders are on the planet (beautiful web-spinning skills, irritating-insect eaters), and I know my fear is not rational.  But such is the nature of phobias, and I do not foresee a change in my status between now and the time I move by the end of this month.

So if you know of a non-environment-poisoning way to gently send all the spiders currently nestled in my soon-to-be-moved things to the next life, I would be ever so grateful if you shared.

Thank you!

Man Hatin’ Tuesdays

“You’re not a man-hater now, are you?” Asked by a co-worker a few minutes ago who, along with another co-worker, likes to work up from a friendly “hey, nice to see ya!” handshake-hello to a now-we’re-hugging-hello-every-day-and-it’s-just-my-way type of thing with female co-workers who will let him.

It’s no secret that I’m starved for human contact, people. But in this case it was more lack of guardedness and mindlessness that led me to being one of the regularly hugged. It wasn’t until one morning when I was literally barely awake and one dude did the I’m-going-to-kiss-you-hello-on-your-cheek-like-we’re-Europeans move that I went, whoa, what the fuck exactly am I doing, hugging and kissing co-workers hello every day? But not any co-workers - two married dudes who are grown men and know full well that it’s outside the bounds of normalcy.

So some other stuff happened around the time of the wake-up kiss (!) and I got to that place where it’s easiest for me to say things, which is to say, rage. I don’t like that I have to be in full on just-because-you-may-have-heard-that-I’m-a-whore-does-not-mean-that-you-are-entitled-to-touch-me-motherfucker mode before I will a) be wholly conscious of the fact that just because a man I’m on friendly terms with, at work or anywhere, wants to hug me, does not mean I have to hug him, or that I’m a jerk for not wanting to and saying so and b) be willing to say so even if I worry he will think I’m a jerk.

Funny thing about ideas of jerkiness… I told both huggers that I just was not hugging men “right now”, that I was going through something (that is my version of really telling you off!!!, which is to think of something true but nonconfrontational for the first round of having to tell you to bug off; guh) and for a couple of weeks that’s where it ended.

Then the one dude starts asking me “are you still not hugging men?” “Will you let me know when you go back to hugging men?” Seriously, like he was asking at the grocer’s “So’d ya get anymore of those granny smith apples in this week? Do you know when they might be in stock?” Like it’s something owed to him that he is being magnanimous in waiting around for. I am patient at first, because it’s my nature and because, seriously world, are you not aware of how there’s pressure involved when you’re put in a position of either doing something you don’t want to do with a coworker, someone you have to see everyday, or being on uncomfortable and/or hostile terms with them? So at first I’m like, yeah, I’ll let you know. Thinking, “this is making it clear that I am not going to hug him, and he will get the message when I don’t notify him of any policy change that there isn’t going to BE any policy change.”

Yes I really did get to be 40 years of age and still this clueless and/or childishly hopeful sometimes. Of course he did not get the message. Of course he started just throwing his arms open again last week and coming towards me like old times. I point my shoulder towards him instead of hugging back, and I dodge the hugging bullet, but I get anxious again. It’s not even that I don’t like hugging people. Or haven’t ever enjoyed hugging him. I do like hugging people, and he is technically a good hugger, in terms of how it feels to be hugged by him.

But I don’t want to hug him now, for all kinds of reasons, but especially the fact that he feels entitled to touch me. Especially the fact that he feels this entitlement even after - or maybe even moreso because? - I’ve said “no.”

So about half an hour ago, I’m distributing a flyer to different departments, and I shit you not, he comes running up behind me “wait for me, wait for me,” and reaching his arms towards me, like, “you must wait for me to get the hug that I have coming to me, stop, you must hug me now, where are you going with that hug that rightfully belongs to me!” So I out-pace him and shrug his hands off my shoulder when he tries to touch me, and then the other dude who was doing the hugging before I put the kibosh on it also comes up to me. “Don’t you love us anymore? Hey, what’s wrong?” So I turn to them, and to a third fellow in their department who I had a brief and trademark-inappropriate sexual fling with a while back, and I say, loud, teasing but also in my I-could-give-a-fuck-anymore-what-you-think mode, and I say “You guys like hugging so much, why don’t you hug each other? Seriously, you’re all into it, you’re all right here, why don’t you grab each other and leave me out of if?”

That’s when I got the “you’re not a man hater, now, are you?” question.

That’s also when I looked at him and said “‘Now?!’ What do mean now?”

The guy who I messed around with a while back says, jokingly but trying to tease me, “you should feel lucky we want to hug you.”

I say “You should feel lucky I haven’t punched you in the balls.” This causes one of the other three to yell “wow!” and bug his eyes out at me in shock.

Happy endings: I haz them.

Hat tip to Ilyka for putting the closely related cockpunching verbiage into my head enough to have it semi-ready in times of need.

Edited to add:  In case it’s not 100% clear, the title of this post is a joke at the expense of people who think that anything short of total acquiescence to any given dude’s agenda = man-hating.  It is not actually an announcement of my hatred for men.

La Pequena Payasa de Mi Corazon

I might not be saying it right, but still.  Clown, with that face, or no?  And tiny.  Sweet natured.  Perpetually trying, and failing, to bedevil the two adult cats she lives with.  Lots of poorly-aimed leaps and grabs.  I get to visit them all twice a day while my boss is on a trip.  And get paid for it.  It’s like winning the good-vibe lottery.

Request for reading material if anyone knows of any/feels like answering

I heard of this writer/journalist named Ahmed Rashid on the Pacifica Radio station in my area (KPFK).  They talked about two of his books, TALIBAN, and DESCENT INTO CHAOS, both of which have to do with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the US’s involvement and/or lack thereof in the region.  I bought both books, and finished TALIBAN, am about a hundred pages into DESCENT INTO CHAOS.  I am probably going to post more about my experience of both books soon.

Right now I am wondering if anyone can recommend any women writers who may have covered or may still be covering similar ground.  Rashid’s books are chock full of information, but women are basically absent from the landscape.  It’s not that he ignores things like how women were treated under the Taliban, it’s that he says it went on, but deals exclusively with the specifics of everything going on with the male populations.  I understand that under the Taliban, women effectively *were* absent from the social landscape, to the best of the Taliban’s ability to enforce that, but women still existed and were still everywhere, all the time, in that region just like everywhere else in the world.  I just wonder what any of them have to say about it, is all.  Seems like it’s an awful lot of women for none of them to have written anything about it?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

BFP -

I sent you an email to the one that isn’t sending the auto-reply of “not answering emails right now,” but still not sure which email accounts you are currently checking, so wanted to mention it.  Starts with an s, ends with an I-gave-it-as-your-address-to-my-friend-Lynn-from-the-radio-show.  I’m seeing Jessica probably before having time to hear back from you.  Am presumptuously making decision to attempt mission regardless.  Sometimes I’m a pushy broad.

Anybody else reading this - sorry for cryptic-ness.  I am the nosiest person I think I’ve ever met, so something like this would probably drive me nuts to read.  Sorry about that, for any of my fellow curious sorts.

Just what I’ve been waiting for - a chance to say something about me me me!

I do so love talking about me.  And I do so LOVE music.  It affects way more than my ears and I feel not-right pretty quickly if I go too long without being able to listen to music.  I got tagged for the following meme by the fantastic (not just cuz she tagged me) blogger at Secular Apostasy .  I will tag seven more people at the bottom of the post.

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Chris Brown - Forever

Jesse McCartney - Leavin’

JoJo - Baby It’s You

Fantasia - When I See You

Sam Cooke - Bring It On Home

NSYNC - Girlfriend featuring Nelly

Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown - No Air

 

I only have one and a half of these songs on CD (Sam Cooke + the version of the NSYNC song that doesn’t have Nelly on it), so by “listening to” I mean either on the radio or via YouTube videos.  Yes, in addition to being an unabashed pop music lover, I also am way behind the curve with things like iPods.  Even though I got one for my birthday a year and a half ago.  And probably could afford to buy seven songs to put on it now.

Tune in next time when I’ll be “watching” my favorite television shows via reading old episodes of TV Guide.

Ah, also - tagged: Noemi, Angel, Littoral Mermaid, Justice Walks , did Donna already get tagged?, how ’bout Ilyka ?, and Kevin.  Sorry if I inadvertantly copied anybody else’s tags - I tried to ascertain whether I was double tagging anyone and - hey it’s a new Joan Kelly refrain! - didn’t find any evidence of that nature.

*Edited to add:  I could have sworn someone already tagged Elle but I may have been getting my Mosaic memes mixed up with my music ones.

Blogroll updates

I will have them.  This is another way of saying there are many blogs I read and love that I did not put in my links when first creating this blog, and have since forgotten most of the time that I have a blogroll to add to. 

Oy. Or whatever else approximates that expression in every language I can think of.

The graphic on the Colbert Report for the perviously ongoing segments entitled “Democralypse Now,” about the primary process… it used to make me laugh because of how overly gory it is, and because exaggerations of things are often what hit my funny bone.

What with how many people are upset in ways where they either don’t seem to be understanding each other and seem to be getting to the point where they don’t want to, as regards the Democratic nominee for President…  I am feeling more like cringing than laughing about the Colbert graphic.  I am feeling unsure about the possibility that anything at all will be able to get me to lighten up about this election. 

Meanwhile, all kinds of everything are brewing on the planet, and I am nervous about that.  Just or unjust, for better and worse, the country I live in plays an important role in global goings-on.  The fears of many seem to result in the childish wish to “isolate” the U.S.  Pull out of everywhere, pretend pieces of earth can be made into locked doors, keep everybody out who doesn’t pass for docile (towards other white people) and white.  And yes, on a few too little hours’ sleep, I *am* going to quote Logan’s Run.  The good and bad news is, and always will be, that there is no sanctuary.  There is no place separate from here, there is no way to contain space separate from there, where all harms have been eradicated and safety can be quantitatively measured and permanently installed.

Engagement is not some liberal idea that will make people get along better and is the right-er thing for people to do, counter to excluding others.  Engagement is not an option.  It is a guarantee, unavoidable.  I say prayers for me to be able to show up to every place I am willingly and unwillingly engaged with something that does not make whatever’s already bad, worse.  I say prayers for you to do the same, even though I know saying so will irritate people.  I can’t stop.  I am too scared.  More scared of everything I can’t control than of admitting the superstitious rituals I perform to address them.  

Overshare Wednesdays

I wrote a page yesterday, of the book I’m ostensibly working on, and then had a fight with what I always think are ghosts when it’s happening, last night at 3:00am-ish.

It’s always the same formula - I wake up half-way, I feel the pleasant kind of groggy instead of the agitated kind of insomnia, and as I am about to happily drift back off to sleep, I suddenly get a physical feeling of - I don’t even know how to describe it - it’s like falling except there is an extra force operating on my body, wherein I’m accelerating down and out somewhere, instead of just free-falling with gravity. So I feel like I’m being sucked out of my body at warp speed, and that is always the precursor to feeling someone or someones touching me. And hearing them say things. Last night the first instance was a crowd of people behind me in bed (I was lying [laying?] on my side), all pushing on my back and all talking at once in droning voices. I could not understand what they were saying but it scared me anyway. Once I physically feel my body moving and can physically hear sound with my ears and not just inside my head, I start panicking to wake up fully, which is the only way it stops. Sometimes I am embarrassed at how afraid I am when I wake up, embarrassed that I feel like crying, that I believe in things like ghosts even though that belief is mostly only in my half-sleep, and it’s a vulnerable state after all, so I don’t know why I’m so hard on myself about it.

I had a new experience during the first episode last night, though. Instead of getting all “please let me go, please stop” while being touched and droned at in my half-sleep, I got super angry and hallucinated (all of it is a hallucination, is why I say “hallucinated”) that my fury scared whoever it was, and they started to back off even before I was fully awake. The second time the whooshing-falling and the touching and voices happened, I woke up pretty quickly and there was a spider on the ceiling over my bed, which prompted me to call it a night and get the fuck up and stay up.

The only thing that dampens the enjoyment of having gotten angry and feeling some sense of power during that first round of hallucinations is that, well, rage is also a symptom of post trauma goings-on. Sudden and intense and out of proportion to what’s actually happening, in day to day life. And I have already been having some of that in the last few weeks, when I wasn’t even working on the book at all. I yelled at a stranger, a woman older than me in a much nicer car, over the stupidest thing. I mean it wasn’t stupid that I didn’t like her behavior towards me in the parking lot, but it is stupid for me to accept escalating rage as an appropriate response to parking lot b.s. I don’t want to have my behavior dictated by whether anyone else is acting “right” or not. But I feel like that has happened more than once lately.

It sneaks up with the facade of powerfulness, with the idea that there is more control in being enraged than in being afraid. It’s not the same thing as plain old anger-emotion. And I am definitely not more in control when it’s going on. I don’t mind feeling it towards imaginary ghost-tormentors, but I’m not going to end up in jail or beat up or dead from going off on them in my half-sleep. I’ve never been in a real fight in my life, and fuck if I want to start now. I’m at the half-way mark! Forty more years and I could get out of this place with a clean slate.

This is helplessness, and this is not a blanket “our health system sucks.” This is racist sexism.

This post by Justice Walks and this one by BFP make me feel like crying and screaming in rage at the same time. “Our healthcare system” does suck, and sucks for many people, and the fact that some people who are not both female and excluded from class-whiteness are also helpless when it comes to doctors and pain management does not mean that this is not racist sexism. The fact that either of their doctors would swear up and down that if anything, the worst it could be is that they are overworked and sorry about the misunderstanding…that does not make this not-racist-sexism either.

The fact that I, an openly former opiate addict, can get prescription opiates for any number of things from an emergency room or my regular doctor does not make me the equivalent of an esteemed research project and report on who gets threated how among physicians.

Lucky for you, there are real studies and subsequent reports that have indeed been done on the subject. And I mean, thank god!, because it’s not like you can just take one or even a couple of women of color’s word for it!

Is there an emoticon for “where the fuck is that screaming Shirley McClaine character from Terms of Endearment when you need her” exclamations?

To JW and BFP - I am sad and angry and that you are being dismissed and disrespected on top of being in goddamn pain, and I wish I had something to offer besides my wrath towards a world that pooh-poohs you away.