Lie to Me

I could have been good for you, if you had let me.  In a different world, a different time, maybe a different set of circumstances.  I could have been what you needed.  Wanted, even.  We could have been happy.  Content in our lives, enjoying each other’s company.  I know we could have been good for each other.

But somehow I wasn’t good enough for you, in ways I’m sure I will never be told.  Rather than be honest with me, you chose to cut me out of your life at the drop of a hat, leaving me forever wondering what grave error I committed to deserve such treatment.  You didn’t have the decency to tell me a damn thing, and somehow I feel like that’s my fault.  Like I didn’t deserve the truth in the first place.

I hate that we aren't talking right now.  Like, it actively, physically hurts me.  I have all these things that I want to tell you, and normally I know you would care about, but you don't care and you don't want to hear them and it hurts.  Last night, for instance, I went to a G&E party for an indie film and met all of these amazing film people.  We laughed, we drank, we bonded over stupid things.  You would have loved it.  The stories they told, and the people they knew!  It was so much fun, and all I wanted to do was to tell you about it.  But I can't.

I get that I put you in a bad situation, and that I said something I shouldn't have.  I understand that what I let slip hurt people.  I can see why you need time to cope with it and that there is a level of trust that was broken.  I can't express how sorry I am in words.  I never meant to hurt anyone, least of all you.  I'm still not sure how any of it reached the level of intensity that it did.  I hate that we can't talk about it and try to figure things out.  I hate imagining that you glare or roll your eyes when you see my name or that you would actively avoid me.  We've been each other's best friends for so long, and it scares me to think that that could be over.  I don't really know what to do with myself.

I want to be able to tell you the stupid things that happen throughout the day - the people I overhear, the random thoughts that pop into my head.  I want to be able to ask you random questions as they pop up into my head.  I hate having to suppress that urge, to go against my initial reaction of just asking things and telling you what is on my mind.  I know that it will take time to get back to normal, but I hate this period right now where I can't say anything or do anything.  You told me to wait, and I'm trying as hard as I can.  It just hurts like hell in the interim.

It's easy to blame me, and in some ways, I guess it makes sense.  I should've had your back better than I did.  I was watching everything play out and I felt entirely helpless to the situation.  But ultimately, I didn't do this.  I didn't make it happen, I didn't plan or scheme it.  I was trying to be a friend and somehow, this time, it wasn't enough.  I've never not been there for you, in whatever way you needed, and that won't ever change.  I wish there was a way that I could make you see that.

I sincerely hope I didn't completely ruin everything.  I hope that some day you can see that I wasn't trying to be malicious, and I wasn't trying to be stupid.  One thing came out of my mouth, and before I knew it, it had completely exploded in my face.  It was out of my hands and I had no control over anything anymore.  I couldn't stop it, I couldn't control it, and, worst of all, I couldn't even tell you because you weren't speaking to me.  I'm so, so, so sorry.

I just really miss my best friend, and I want him back.

Carnage

She left a trail of wreckage everywhere she went.  Hearts trampled, lives in ruin, and she just kept moving forward.  She didn't do it on purpose.  She didn't relish it.  She didn't even know it had happened most of the time.

She didn't care.

Kate, never Katherine, put herself first.  She was narcissistic and self-serving.  She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and she didn't think any further than that.

Kate hated herself.  Not because she hurt people or thought only of herself, though. She hated herself because in her eyes she was as imperfect as a person could be.  She hated her hair and her smile.  She loathed the little extra weight she had gained last winter and couldn't shake, and she hated the way her arms looked in tank tops.  She felt dumb.  She believed the world was against her and that the only way to survive was to stand steadfastly against the world.

She was plagued with indecisiveness, and still never seemed to choose correctly.  School, work, sex.  It didn't matter.  She'd find a new passion, get bored, and move on.  She didn't go back to things or give them a second shot.  Her house was filled with half-finished projects in media that previously held her attention.  In her dining room, she kept an easel with a chalk drawing of half of a horse.  Her dining room - which never held a table - was filled with instruments she never bothered to pick up.  Her bedroom held the beginnings of comic book, documentary, and art house film collections.  She hadn't even glanced at them since they were added to the appropriate pile.

Kate dated, a lot.  She'd pick a guy for a few months, cheat on him a few times, and then somehow make him feel like he had messed everything up by caring too much.  She'd walk away, and she would find someone new.  Everyone she dated would have sworn they were in love, that their futures were intertwined, until the moment she unceremoniously ended it.  Some were so unlucky they never got an official end.  She'd just stop responding to texts, refuse to answer the door when they rang, and ignore their presence if they happened to end up in the same place.  Poor guys never saw it coming.

She really didn't care, either.  Her friends tried to understand.  They would make up excuses for her, trying to console those left in the wake or to justify to themselves their friend's decisions.  No one ever could grasp her apathy toward others.  Even they often wondered if they would be ostracized next, deemed unworthy or unnecessary.  Kate was hard to love, and yet everyone seemed to want to love her.

Kate didn't want to be loved by anyone that had ever showed he attention, save for one.  She had lived the ultimate cliché.  She had given her heart to a man - boy, really - who had held it in his hand just long enough for her to become comfortable, before he squeezed it until it burst.  He threw it back into her face and told her she would never be good enough.  He had no idea what he had created.

She had people who cared.  People that wanted to be let in further, to get to know the gentle soul they thought they saw peeking out from the shadows.  She leaned on them, sometimes, but she felt like she was unworthy of their time, and that they could never understand.  Isolated, independent, self-reliant.  Kate didn't like feeling indebted to someone.  She didn't like feeling lesser.  But she didn't know how to feel any other way, so she avoided it by just not letting people get close.

Kate was broken.  She came across as arrogant, but inside she felt minuscule.  She had given up trying to find a fix.  Now she just focused on trying to survive.

10:31 pm.  18. 7. 13

I'm having a bit of a strange night.  Strange weekend maybe.  Hell, strange week?

Last weekend was wonderful and horrific for reasons you've probably already heard about.  Safe to say, they set me up to begin the week more exhausted than I normally am by the end of a normal week.  Then with work and school and life, it was just a long, wearing week.  I spent Friday night watching The Road to El Dorado and drinking.  Not to excess, no worries there.  Today, I went to a movie and came home with nothing to do and no one to talk to.  Kind of a strange feeling, not going to lie.  So I marathoned Bones, got bored lying on the couch, and pulled every comforter, random blanket, and pillow I possess into a giant pile on my living room floor.  I basically nested, in the childish way, not the pregnant way.  And here I've been, curled up on the floor in a pile of fluff and material ever since.  It's pretty comfortable, to be honest.

Is the choice of activities this weekend a sign of regression?  After the stress of last week, am I choosing cartoons and floor campouts as a way to revert back to a part of my life that is less stressful and was more carefree?  Or maybe I'm just going crazy because I'm used to having someone to chat with, and everyone has somehow found something else to do the last couple nights?  Or maybe I'm just so bored that I needed to find something -- anything -- to mix it up a little bit?  I don't know.

I'm not really even sure why I'm writing, because I don't feel like I really have anything to say.  Perhaps I'm creating an outlet for verbiage since I don't have any other outlet right now.

Clearly, I'm hypothesizing too much about myself.  Stop psychologizing yourself, Sisco.  Save it for coworkers and people you see in stores.

Side note: If my neighbors keep smoking this much pot, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a contact high.  Seriously, guys, it smells awful.  Lay off.  I'm guessing their mother is out of town on a trip again.  At least they're quiet when they're high?  It's something

I'm tired but I don't really want to go to sleep.  Going to bed now almost feels like defeat.  That makes no sense, I know.

I'm just going to stop before my ridiculousness gets the best of me and I get super crazy.  Maybe that's just the residual pot in the air.  Who knows.

This was a lot of nonsense.  Sorry.  Maybe next time it'll be more worth your time?  That of course implies that reading my rambling is ever worth your time, which I'm not convinced is true.

If the neighbor does not stop saying HULLO into his phone, I'm going to start responding.  And with that, I'm out.

11:25pm 29.6.13

Schenectady.

It's unusual to me to see movies with distinct acts anymore.  Sure, you can tease out story points and changes in tone.  You can track character arcs and suspect what may be coming next.  But to see legitimate acts, changes in focus from one character to another, with tonal qualities that are represented not only in the characters but in the film itself?  I feel like that's an art that isn't well-represented nowadays. 

And then there's The Place Beyond The Pines.

It's billed as a Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper movie about good guys and bad guys, cops and robbers.  It appeared in the trailers as action and suspense, with drama and maybe a love story thrown in for good measure.  I guess on the surface, that's an accurate representation.  Yet….not at all. 

I can't really figure out the right order to address all of the things in my head, so I'm just going to jump right in.

First of all, it's not a Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper movie.  It's a Ryan Gosling then Bradley Cooper movie.  The two characters share a scene together - a brief but intensely important scene that sets up the end of Act I and the beginning of Acts II and III.  When Gosling makes his swift exit, Cooper steps in to take the reins.  Gosling remains a presence through the rest of the film, but he is not shown again other than in a picture at the end.  Our bad guy has been defeated, ultimately, and our good guy has appeared to enjoy the spotlight.

Act I is the story of a tattoo-covered Gosling who learns he's a dad and tries to find a way to provide for his child - using his unique skillset and a friend's knowledge to rob banks.  As you can surmise, this doesn't end particularly well, leading to Gosling's departure from the film, through a window, early on. 

The cop who cornered our anti-hero becomes our new focus, single-handedly bringing down the corruption in his police department and working a promotion to ADA into the deal.  He's smarter than everyone around him and uses it to his advantage, all while caring for his own small child and wife.

Fifteen years pass and it appears that our old cop friend is now making a run for Attorney General, while working with his now-ex-wife to raise their teenage son.  Cooper takes a backseat here, to let his boy Avery (or AJ) take the lead, splitting the screen with new friend Jason.  These two become our third act focus, as we anxiously wait for the reveal that these two are more intimately connected than either could possibly be aware.

So three acts, each with a totally separate focus.  The narratives are clearly connected, but our POV has an effect on how we comprehend what we are seeing.  The filmmakers aren't satisfied with just giving us a new perspective, though.  The ways that they crafted the acts were impressive in and of themselves.  I'm not well versed in lighting and camera use to go into a lot of details, other than that there were choices clearly made to make each act look distinct, while still keeping the overall story uniform.  It was subtle, and it was wonderful to see. 

I can say though that I was particularly drawn to the use of shaky cam throughout the film.  In Act I, with Gosling's story front and center, there were scenes that didn't make a ton of sense to me to use shaky cam.  He wasn't necessarily running or jumping or doing anything crazy to necessitate it, but then it clicked.  The shaky cam was somehow tied to his emotion.  When he was panicking, or angry, or unstable, the shaky cam became more noticeable.  It was the strongest during the last couple scenes of Act I, as Bradley Cooper's character was introduced and Gosling's was reaching out to anything that could save him, trying to come to terms with the inescapable position he had gotten himself into.  And once that was over, the shaky cam ceased.  Cooper's character was much more self-sufficient, self-aware, and self-confident.  He did was was needed, he made decisions that were sound, and he stuck by them with surity.  The shaky cam only came back in bits and spurts after that, when things got hectic or panicked again - but never as long or as intensely as it was used with Gosling.  As we entered Act III, the shaky cam came back just a little bit - whether this was to tie Gosling's son to his father or just to show the imbalance within the two boys, I'm not sure.  But when they were steadfast in their decisions, the camera held still.  The more I think about it, the more this decision just seems genius.  Maybe they didn't plan it that way, but man did it work. 

Tuesday Thoughts (or, My Brain Goes Haywire When I Don't Sleep)

I have a piece of advice to offer to anyone out there that may come across this.  If a person ever, ever, mentions to you that they have ever been suicidal, they've ever doubted their desire to live, or that they've wanted to die to escape their own personal misery, you have no right to tell them that their feelings are unfounded, their panic unreasonable, or their fears exaggerated.  I don't care if the person is young or old, male or female, known to be depressed or just hiding it well.  Even if it comes up 8 years later in conversation and you think that they are better now, you don't tell someone that their panic, fear, and fears about continuing to live are being felt for no reason.  There's always a reason.  Always.

You don't need to understand it.  You don't need to empathize with it, or sympathize with it, or even know the details.  The reason may seem entirely stupid to you, or it may be something that would make you feel the same way if you were in that situation.  It doesn't matter.  You accept that the person is (or was) dealing with something they felt they can't handle, and you support them.  You refer them for help if need be.  Is it your responsibility to keep them alive? No, and you can't feel that pressure on you so that their potential decision becomes a guilt you carry for the next several decades.  But the decent human being thing to do is to at the very least not insult them or what they are going through.  I really don't think that's too much to ask.

Another thing to think about, just from me to you?

Ebbs and Flows

Friday
6 o'clock
After dinner
Blinds closed
Everyone gathering
Knowing we were late
Clothes on the floor
Blankets askew
Flushed skin
Fingertips
Rushing

Monday
3 o'clock
Blinds open
Door unlocked
Visible to everyone
Sweating after practice
Wandering hands
Lazy exploring
Sore muscles
Massaging
Comfort

Blink.

I blinked.  When I opened my eyes, time had flown by.  Life had passed by.  I had missed fights, break ups, and make ups. Tests and games.  Failures and successes.  I had blinked and missed the prime of my youth.

I blinked.  The time I had missed before seemed to rush back.  No, I couldn’t remember the exact moments we spent together, or the days I pushed you away, but the emotion was there.  Raw and just as painful as it was joyful.

I should listen to myself when I say I'm tired.

Here’s the thing. I’ve always been billed as smart. I’ve made good grades, been able to apply recently-acquired skills, explain things to others, juggle multiple things at once, blah blah blah. It’s just who I am… it’s a part of me that I don’t really think about. When people have commented on my intelligence in any way, I’ve shrugged it off, smiled, and said that I really don’t see it. And that’s about as honest as I can be. It’s not false modesty. Or just modesty. I genuinely don’t see it. I’m sure that’s some balance between seeing myself as ‘normal’ because I’m the only me I have to compare to, and having my lack of intelligence constantly reinforced as I grew up. I feel grossly inferior to those around me frequently, and I have little faith in my own abilities.
Yet at the same time, I find myself in grad school, bored out of mind and not learning anything. I’m not reading for class. I’m not prepping for quizzes. I’m waiting til the last minute to write papers. I’m not challenged, and I hate it. I feel like I’m wasting my time. And I realize, as I think about it, that I think I’m being lazy and disengaged because it’s the only way I’ve found to add a slight level of complexity to what I’m doing. I can’t get myself to care other than when I absolutely have to. And then I work simply out of necessity. It’s incredibly frustrating. I hate feeling like I’m not learning. I love learning, but I think I hate school. And somehow my screwed-up brain processes this as my being stupid. Shut up, brain.
I don’t want the people I care about to feel ever that they are inferior to me, and I definitely never want them to think that I think that. Because I don’t. The people I’ve kept in my life are there for a reason, and they all bring something into my life that means a lot to me. I don’t ever see myself as superior to the people I care about. They’re my peers. My friends. Knowing that I’ve ever made someone feel that way hurts me deeply and makes me feel like I’ve failed them. For someone who is supposedly smart, I really am an idiot. Or maybe just a really bad friend.
I know I’ll figure it all out eventually, and as much as I hate where I am right now and want to throw in the towel, I don’t think I’ll actually do it. I’ll just keep skating by and trying not to let it eat away at me, until I reach a point where it doesn’t anymore.
22.2.13 9:50am

Comfortable.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks, full of travel and rest, illness and stress, oscillating between all four in a frantic zig-zag pattern not worth outlining.  I guess that's the holidays for you.  So the holidays were good, family is good, vacation was good.  Back to life and work and school and all that jazz.  Cue Catherine Zeta-Jones.  Happy 2013 y'all.  Now that that's out of the way…

I've achieved a sense of inner peace that I don't think I've felt before.  At least, I haven't felt anything like it in quite a long time.  There's been a lot on my mind the last couple of months (because having a lot on my mind is so rare for me, I know), but it seems to have finally settled down a little bit.

I have had to come to terms with a lot of things about myself lately.  My morality, my sanity, my mortality, and faith.  Not in a religious sense.  We all know where I stand on that.  My faith in others (and my faith in myself).  I've confronted my ability to trust my own judgment, and my ability to keep things to myself.  I've questioned how much people really need to know about me, and whether it's better to save people from pain or let them cope with it on their own.  I've thought long and hard about what I want to do with my time and how I want to spend my hours, days, and years.  I've had to face a lot of questions about how I interact with other people and my inability to trust....anyone.  A lot of this was happening on a partly subconscious level.  I think that's the only way my brain knew how to process it.  If it had all been conscious, my body probably would have shut down.

But yes, a lot of thinking, contemplating, judging, and hypothesizing.  And it feels really good to feel like I know where I stand now…to have made a decision, reached a conclusion, and felt it resonate in my gut as well as my head.  To feel like everything is in sync again and to not feel a disconnect between the signals in my body.  To know what I want and what I have and to be content with it.  Feels good.

midnight musings

I've known it for a month or so now.  I've fought it, denied it, repressed it, hated it, and ignored it.  But that's becoming harder and harder to do.

I can feel it within me, carving a place inside, making itself at home.  It makes me nauseous and tired, but I can't sleep.  It makes me angry, and it makes me ache.  Sometimes it feels like my entire insides are being consumed simultaneously, and I just want to crawl into a ball and give up on everything.

The denial comes back sometimes, and then I feel it rear up again, reminding me of its presence.  Sometimes it's down in my gut.  Sometimes it's in my chest, compressing my lungs and making it impossible to breathe.

I keep debating whether I should tell anyone, or if I should just see how it plays out.    It could just go away, after all.  Or so I've been deluding myself.  It could just fade into oblivion.  I could wake up one day and be all better.

I don't want it here.  I want it to just go away.  It'd be easier if I could just accept it, being content with the possible changes in my life, and move forward.  Move past it.  But I literally hate  it with every fiber of my being.  I'd do anything to just make it all go away and go back to how things were.  But I don't know how.

I don't want anything to change, but I'm terrified that if I tell you, it would.  I don't want you, or anyone, to treat me differently.  I hate the way this makes me feel.  If I could wish it away, I'd have done it back when I first found out.  I don't want anything to change.  I don't want the things I've talked about to become could-have-beens and impossibilities.  I don't want to have to abandon the things that make me me.  But I don't think it can just stay the same.  Not now.  Not anymore.  It kills me to say that.  But this is killing me anyway.

18.12.12  12:33 AM

Somehow, he's done it again.

I'm in kind of a bizarre headspace tonight, and I'm not entirely sure why.  Well, I have a couple ideas, but nothing I feel like writing about just yet.  My brain feels like it is simultaneously working on overdrive and not working at all.  I'm on the verge of crying, which means my temples are pounding, my throat feels constricted, and my eyes are unintentionally squinting.  You know exactly what I'm talking about if you've ever experienced it.  And I hope you haven't.  It's pretty miserable.

It all started when I was reading, and if you know anything about me at all, you know that there's only one author who pretty consistently inspires me to think and, consequently, write.  If you don't know who I'm talking about, shame on you.  His name is probably in the last 10 posts over a dozen times.   Anyway, he was describing how he had a girl in his life who he had probably loved in the past, and woud inevitably love in the future, and how they both still knew they would never be together.  And somehow, this got me thinking about my childhood home.

About six months ago, I was eyelid-deep in the hunt for a place to live in Milwaukee.  I was spending the better part of my days looking at listings, for weeks.  I started dreaming about browsing Craigslist and Hotpads, and would wake up disappointed that the perfect apartment I'd found was only in my head.  In all this research, I happened across a random website where you could look up property values.  For fun, I searched the house my parents used to live in - the one I refer to as my childhood home.  I found it, and saw that it was currently on the market.  The site was even kind enough to link to the listing, complete with a plethora of pictures of my house.  But it was not my house.  I was angered.

Sunday Morning Ruminations

You know, there are a lot of things that I don't understand in this world.  Racism, for one.  Sexism, homophobia, why our government can't get their shit together…all on the list.  There's one thing in particular, though, that is on my mind right now.  If you are doing something that makes you feel miserable - particularly, if it makes you feel bad about yourself - why do you continue to do it?

We've all been put in situations where we had to choose between the lesser of two evils, and we find a way to justify our decisions, to cope with the outcome.  But when you find yourself continually doing something that you feel bad about…something that you know is wrong and you are having problems coming to terms with it…stop doing it.  And for the love of God, if it involves lying to other people, that's just another reason to stop.  Lies beget lies, and add to confusion, frustration, distrust, and anger.  It's just a disaster waiting to blow up in your face.

I am writing from personal experience, indirectly.  The person who inspired this will know, but I'm not going to go into details out of respect for said person. I think/hope I can explain my own confusion without giving away any details…

A person has to be able to live with their decisions.  We can't escape them, most of the time, and God knows we remember the stupid shit we do better than we remember the positives in our lives.  So if we consciously decide to continue doing something stupid, or something we know is probably not right, we have to find a way to justify it.  And when we can't justify it, we develop a disconnect between our actions and how we feel about ourselves.  The action may make us feel good, or feel loved, or feel worthwhile, but internally we are tearing ourselves apart because we know that we aren't doing what is 'right'.

Now, I could go into a whole rant about who defines 'right' and 'wrong', and I would probably completely annihiliate most social norms in the process, but frankly it's not worth the time or energy.  Let's just assume that there is some sort of common ground as to what is 'right'.  For example, cheating on your taxes, cheating on your significant other, killing somone…all probably 'wrong'.  Being honest when you fuck up, trying to avoid harming other people, paying back your student loans, probably 'right'.  Ok, got that out of the way.

So.  When we do something contrary to what we believe is 'right', it generally leaves us feeling not so great about ourselves.  Sometimes we can justify the action if it only happens once.  But when it happens repeatedly, the disconnect between what is 'right' and what we want to do continues to grow, and spread, and it eventually manifests into a fabulously overwhelming self-loathing.  We hate what we are doing, but we don't/can't/won't stop doing it.

This is what I don't understand.  If I hate myself for doing something, I'm pretty likely to say "Hey, Amber, stop being a moron and you'll feel better".  I hate the overwhelming feeling of hating myself for something I've done.  It is only made worse when the action is continued, and situations only get worse when ignored or built upon over time.

I can hear you saying "Amber, Amber, Amber, not everyone will start to hate themselves and feel miserable when they do things that aren't right.  You can't just assume that, just because you feel that way."  This, reader, is where you would be wrong.  The people who don't feel some level of guilt - that will grow into hatred - when they continually do something that goes against their fundamental moral principles, well, there's a term for them.  Sociopaths.

What I'm describing here isn't some hullabaloo I just made up so I could sound smart or moral.  It's basic psychological theory, derived from countless research and case studies, and only reaffirmed as time has passed.  When your outer/physical/momentary needs are not congruent with your internal/emotional/long-term needs (in this case, when your beliefs about how you should behave are being entirely thrown under the bus by your actions), you breed your own neuroses.  Ignoring this - or even worse, accepting it - is what causes self-loathing.  The only way to reestablish some personal peace is to find that congruency again.

So if you're doing something that makes you feel like a horrible human being, you should probably, ya know, stop.  The people who are willing to accept self-loathing are literally feeding into their own neuroses, developing their own psychopathologies.  Even if the action they are doing makes them feel slightly better, the hatred of the self will eventually win out.  And if you're doing something you know is 'wrong', and it makes you hate yourself, and you decide to continue doing it anyway because you don't mind the self-loathing…that's a whole  'nother topic I could go into.  Perhaps at a later date.

Maybe this makes more sense to me because I've studied the psychological theory behind it.  Maybe it's just because I'm weird and approach things differently from other people.  Maybe it's because I actively avoid making decisions nowadays that I know I will not be able to live with.  Who knows.  It just shows to me how much I really don't understand why some people do what they do.  Why is it ever a good idea to do something that you know - KNOW - is going to make you miserable?  Any momentary happiness will be overran by the lingering misery later on.  It's just not worth it.  Not to me at least.

9.12.12  10:25am

Songs that Induce Flashbacks

Please join me on a trip down my aural memory lane.....

A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton

It was the spring of 2002, campus was starting to warm up, and the 8th graders were in the  middle of prepping for the best 8th grade play in the history of Thomas Jefferson School (possibly in the history of high school plays ever).  We had just completed our dress rehearsal and had piled into the art room in the dank basement of Main to do a final prop check when the radio came on.  Andy Matuschak started singing first, almost under his breath, but as he got into the song, he got louder, and we all joined in.  We were each in our own little world, worried about the first performance that was looming and avoiding the presence of Miss Fairbank like the plague, but we all realized at some point that we had reached a moment of perfect harmony.  It was beautiful.  And when the song ended, we didn't speak of it.  We just kept on with what needed to get done.  Remembering moments like this make me miss my class.

It Makes Me Ill - *N Sync

One of my roommates in 7th grade was a freshman named Min Hee Han, a transplant from South Korea who was new to the United States.  This was the only song she had in English on her computer, so we listened to it a lot…basically any time I needed a momentary repireve from K-Pop.  I still know every single word, and I gleefully sing along whenever I happen across it.

Canned Heat - Jamiroqui

This will forever be the Napoleon Dynamite song for me.  Probably for many people, really, but I don't just connect it to the movie.  I very clearly remember curling up in bed with my high school boyfriend, in his dorm, and watching this movie.  A few days before, I had tried to teach him to dance - really, it turned into a lesson on basic rhythm which he still failed - and I had continually told him that it wasn't about looking amazing, it was all about not giving a damn what others thought.  He didn't understand what I meant until he saw Napoleon shaking his ass in snow boots in front of the whole student body.  Watching the final dance in Napoleon Dynamite with him was hilarious, and endearing, and I will cherish it as a totally light and funny moment in our otherwise often tumultuous relationship.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life - Eric Idle

This is another one that is tied to my high school boyfriend.  The song itself doesn't mean a lot to me, but the circumstances around it will stick with me forever.  He had a single his senior year, and we had pushed the two bunk beds together into a king-size bed for, ya know, convenience, but we really only ever slept on one side of it.  Anyway, one day while he was playing soccer with his friends, my best friend at the time, her boyfriend, and I all decided to sit on the bed and watch Life of Brian.  I was on the side Blake slept on, and the other two were on the spare bed, as it were.  Blake came in from playing soccer and initially balked at us being there, until his best friend told him to man up, stop his bitching, and go climb in bed with his girlfriend.  So he did.  He climbed in bed and cuddled right behind me.  To be honest, I don't even remember the end of the movie, other than hearing the song, because he wrapped his arms around me and whispered in my ear "When are those two leaving?"

Innocent - Our Lady Peace

The first guy I was serious about in college was obsessed with this song.  It meant the world to him because he was dealing with some pretty serious family issues at the time, and because it meant so much to him, and I heard it incessantly for a while, I will forever flash back to those days when this song comes on.

Playground Love - Air

This song was featured in the movie The Virgin Suicides, a Sofia Coppola film about a family of teenage sisters and the boys who were obsessed with them.  It deals with love, lust, grief, and fear in very moving ways.  It is one of two movies ever that have affected me so deeply that it changed my mood for several days after I saw it.  This one caused me to think a lot.  The other genuinely brought back my depression.  I like this film more now because of it, and this song always takes me back to that first viewing.

I Say A Little Prayer For You - the Cast of My Best Friend's Wedding

This was one of only a couple DVDs we had in our dorm in 7th grade, and thus we watched it incessantly.  We were so obsessed, actually, that we made up a dance to the song…which I could probably still do.  Those totally carefree moments of dancing, singing, and falling into a heap on the floor in laughter are what I miss most about TJ.

Sayonara, and peace out.

I've always had problems saying goodbye.  It's always "see you later" or "talk to you soon".  Sometimes, I say it in a foreign language.  Au revoir!  Ciao!  Hasta luego!  If that doesn't work, "byebye" or "miss ya" may fill in.  But very rarely do I say the word "goodbye" as such.  It seems so formal, so definite.

Goodbye has always scared me.

It's not like I thought that speaking the words would make any separation permanent.  I knew words don't hold any magical powers to be released when spoken.  It just never feels right.

It wasn't just speaking them either.  Just the thought of goodbye intimidated me.  Saying goodbye to someone - admitting that you may not talk to them for a long time and possibly never speak to them again - was frightening.

Thoughts During a Football Game

Today, I had the opportunity to watch the Rams play on TV, because they were playing my new local team - the Packers. (boo, hiss).  These are my thoughts.

1. Do football players really think it's a good idea to hit each other in the head after a good play?  I know you've all been concussed before.  Let's not make it worse.

2. Aaron Rodgers is stretching his neck and the announcer says that the pillows in the STL hotel must not have been good enough.  Right, because it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that he JUST GOT SACKED.

3. The Saints are losing!

4. I really like GB's pink shoes.

Time

Here's a question I like to ask people when I'm 5/8 drunk: Let's say you had the ability to make a very brief phone call into your own past.  You are (somehow) given the opportunity to phone yourself as a teenager; in short, you will be able to communicate with the fifteen-year-old version of you.  However, you will only be able to get to talk to your former self for fifteen seconds.  As such, there's no way you will be able to explain who you are, where or when you're calling from, or what any of this lunacy is supposed to signify.  You will only be able to give the younger version of yourself a fleeting, abstract message of unclear origin.

What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds?

                                                            - Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur, p. 57

Chuck Klosterman is one of the very few authors who can inspire me enough to close a book, stare off into space, and contemplate what I just read.  This is perhaps not the best thing for him, because it takes me forever (relatively speaking) to finish a book, so I haven't read as much of his work as I want to.  It's great for me though, because his thoughts do what very few people can - they actually force me to think about the world.  Not only force…they make me want to sit and stare and think.  As someone who can't sit still for very long, who is constantly multi-tasking and mulling over a dozen things at any given time, it takes a hell of a lot for something to slow me down.  For something to make me want to cease all activity and to just think about a specific topic?  Well, that's essentially unheard of.  And yet, Mr. Klosterman seems to have it down to a science.  I'd love to have a beer with the guy and chat, but the odds of that are pretty damn low.  I'd probably end up sitting, slack-jawed, listening to his genius anyway; I'd be a horrible companion and he'd probably think I was mental.  Ah well, a girl can dream.

So now I direct your attention to the above quote, which (if you are a normal person) you read first, and then got confused as to why the first paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with time travel.  This is the most recent passage that caused me to zone out and process.  Klosterman spends an entire chapter in his book Eating the Dinosaur on the implausibility of time travel, which is perhaps-not-so-coincidentally written in a non-linear fashion. The entire chapter is brilliant, but this specific section really struck me.  Probably because it asked me a question.

What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds? 

My first answer came to me instantaneously.  It wouldn't even take fifteen seconds.  Mr. Klosterman, I thought, I have beaten your game!  I'd just tell myself that medicine was the wrong field.  Maybe even simpler.  Don't apply to medical school.  Yes, that would do it…that would be what I needed to hear.  But just as quickly, I flashed back to my fifteen-year-old self.  She probably would believe such a phone call was a joke.  Maybe even a hallucination brought on by too much work and not enough sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The phone rings.  Amber searches for the cordless and answers with a short “Yeah?”

“Amber.  Listen up.  Don’t mourn for Pluto.  Just come up with a new mnemonic.”

Amber wrinkles her forehead.  “Uhh, what are you talking about?”

The phone disconnects.  Amber drops it on the counter and shrugs.  She goes back to cooking.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

So I thought again.  How could I make it more clear to past-me that medicine was the wrong field?  I could say that the 6-year program was a bad idea, but even that might just come across as a challenge to past-me.  Could I point myself toward psychology?  I could try, but fifteen-year-old me wouldn't understand why, and I wouldn't have time to explain.  Ok, Chuck, I am now seeing the conundrum.

It was here that another thought struck me.  Say that I was able to say that medicine was wrong and psychology was a better choice.  Say that fifteen-year-old me believed it and went along with it.  How could she ever know for sure medicine was wrong?  Would I really want to create a perpetual sense of doubt in myself?  That sounds thoroughly unhealthy. 

So, hypothesize with me again.  The phone call works.  Past-me somehow believes me, and I save myself the 4 years of misery and debt I spent in medical school.  The things that would change would be innumerable.  Many of the friendships - pretty damn close to family - I have were forged in the hours of lectures, labs, patient rooms, libraries, and Starbucks that medical students are forced to endure.  I can't imagine my life without them.  Here's when you say, "But Amber, you'd make entirely different friends, they'd surely be just as close, and you'd never know what you were missing.  That's a stupid thing to get caught up on."  And you'd be right.  But the fact is, I wouldn't want to lose them (but it's not a loss if you never knew them, you say).  But I do know them.  And if past-me grows into present-me and doesn't know them, somehow she has managed to lose something from her future.  Something that has kept her grounded, sane, and happy for over 6 years.  How could I do that to myself?

Then I got stuck in common time travel conundrum, one that Klosterman spends a significant amount of words on.  If fifteen-year-old me did believe me, wouldn't that change the me I am today?  It would have to, somehow.  So then if past-me changed career paths, there would be no reason for me to make said phone call.  And now we're stuck in a loop that really only has one viable solution.  Constantly splintering, simultaneously existing, alternate realities.  I kind of like this idea…if only there was a way to peak through a portal and see how the other timelines were doing.  That may just make the what-ifs worse though, knowing for sure what was best and having no way to fix it.

I reread Klosterman’s quote.  Obviously, I thought, I had just chosen the wrong message.  Maybe something not so life-changing could be easier and still have a positive impact on past-me.  I went through several options.

Don't trust him when he smiles that way.

Make sure you finish that paper.

When you go get stitches, make them x-ray your hand twice.

That fight isn't worth it.  Stand up and walk away.

Go above his head; make him stop harrassing you.

Don't let him convince you to do something you don't want to.

Every one I tried, ultimately led me to the same conclusion.  I had no way to know how such a message could be believed, or the effect it might possibly have.  So I got even less specific.

She’s not worth your, or his, time.

There are more people out there.

Don’t pull your punch.

But, see, these all could cause ripples that create waves, changing the tide of my past and recreating the future/my present.  It simply wouldn't do.  By this point, I wanted to simultaneously shake Mr. Klosterman's hand and punch him in the face.  Damn him for outsmarting me!

I thought more deeply about me at fifteen, too, trying to recall just who I was then.  Counting back to figure out what grade I was in at fifteen (I can never remember anything by my own age), the memories returned.  I was a nearly suicidal, honor roll-making, varsity-sport-playing, not-so-healthy-relationship-having, future doctor who was functioning on absolutely no sleep, raising two children, and running a household of five.  She was not in a happy place, and she felt completely cut off from the world.  In her mind, whether she was right or not, no one understood just how much pressure she was under.  Klosterman had picked a great age to contact.  Who at fifteen wouldn’t kill for some insight into the future?  That’s the girl who I wanted to reach out to.  That’s the girl that needed my help.

I gave it one last stab, convinced it was a paradox and that I'd never have an answer.  Then it came to me.  Unfortunately, it's the same message that we've been hearing for months and years now.  Of course, fifteen-year-old me wouldn't know that.  And it's vague, and unclear, and not enough to change my entire life trajectory.  But it's exactly what I wanted so desperately to hear back then.

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The phone rings.  Frazzled, Amber scrambles to find the cordless phone, locating it under a pile of homework that Joey needs reviewed.  As she shoves the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, she answers with a short "Hello?" and turns back to check on the homemade pasta she is preparing.  She hears a strangely familiar voice start to rush.

" Amber, I need to tell you something.  Are you listening?”

"Who is this?" she responds, returning her focus to the stove.  Their voices overlap.

"You need to know this.  Life is hard, and I know you want to give up, but you can't. There are people who love you.  People rely on you.  And someday you will look back and see that even the worst days were worth living.  You're strong.  You can survive.  It gets better."

“Who—“ The phone disconnects.  “Hello?” She sets the phone on the counter and stares at it, feeling tears well up.  She doesn’t know who the caller is, but she loves her in that moment and hopes they'll meet someday.

The other Amber is crying too.

I'm Just Here.

For years, I told myself I would never do it.  I would not be that person.  I couldn't bear the thought; I didn’t want people to look at me, judging me. I refused to be the person sitting in the theater by myself, trying to pass the time before the previews with no one to talk to, no one to laugh with. 

I had been lucky.  Once I moved out on my own, I rarely missed out on seeing a movie that I wanted to see.  I could always find someone to go with me.  I had a network of sorts.  Niju for action movies, Tina for dramas, Nida for pretty much whatever struck our fancy at the moment.  That was the normal rotation - the core group - and then there were several others who I knew would be up for seeing something if the mood struck.  As a cinephile vehemently against sitting in the dark theater alone, it was a perfect position to be in.  Until it wasn't.

Rumination should be a 4-letter word.

It's bad, and I'm guilty of doing it a lot, and it makes situations and ideas exponentially more painful and complicated. But since I have little else to do right now, I struggle to avoid getting stuck in my thoughts, thinking and assessing until I can't see straight and every thoughts makes me want to cry.

And so, I cried a lot yesterday.  I couldn't shut off my brain, and I hadn't slept, and I couldn't find the words to explain how I felt - or why - to anyone.  Yesterday was miserable and I quite literally wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  I leaned on my family and friends a lot more than I have in years, probably.  They were all great.  Some of their advice and ideas I agreed with.  Some of it, not so much.  But frankly, just being able to get some things out of my head and hear them aloud helped tremendously.

Today has been significantly better.  No tears, the weather is in the 60s and rainy (aka I'm in heaven), and I went for a 2.5 mile run today.  The rain, the clean air, feeling the pounding in my chest and my soles hitting the pavement...it was wonderfully freeing and helped me clear my mind.  Now I just need to shake this headache - no doubt brought on by the fact that I haven't eaten a meal in 36 hours.  Oops.

What's my age again?

It's been an interesting day.  It started by being awakened by a phone call from my dad to accuse me - jokingly - of withholding information.  Then I got to deal with water dripping in the walls.  Not my fault, but I still had to deal with it and clean up the mess.  Then there was Ice Age, which was not a cinematic marvel but was entertaining enough.  Then home, where I checked my mail and found that I had received a massive box.  Except I spent the next 2 hours fielding phone calls from my entire family - most of them more than once - so I couldn't open it right away, as much as I wanted to.  I knew exactly what it was.  Finally, I got it unboxed and unwrapped.  It was an absolutely beautiful new guitar.  It's possibly one of the nicest things someone has bought for me.  I'm not sure I deserve it, or that I was worth the money, but it means a hell of a lot to me.  So I taught myself 9 chords, fiddled with a few songs, and stopped when my fingers felt swollen...stupid calluses being gone due to my crazy couple of months.  Then I watched TV, ate dinner, and relaxed.  It was a good day.