Really?!

My boss and I frequently sit in our cubes and say, "REALLY?!" Yes, like that. All bold and caps and italicized. Sometimes, it's underlined, too. You can just tell by the way we say it. The eye rolling helps, too.

But, seriously, this is my reaction to my life right now. In less than one week, I was pulled over (although did not get the ticket), came within inches of being run over in a cross walk, came within inches of being broad-sided in a parking lot, had brake lights illuminated on my dashboard that shouldn't've been there (and then paid $89 to find out that nothing was wrong, have the sensor cleaned and reset, and then have the lights come on again before I even got home), and I got stuck in an elevator. No, really.

So, I wasn't stuck in the elevator that long -- maybe five minutes? Still, it was incredibly spooky. (Thankfully, I was not thinking about that scene in Inception where Arthur uses the elevator to drop everyone. That would have made the big lurching thing the elevator did even more scary.)

My cats are driving me cuckoo banana crackers -- suddenly Mazzy isn't yowling in the night and waking me up (which is nice), but she's doing it during waking hours instead (which sucks). Emmett who, in his almost 6 years of life, has never spent a full night sleeping on my bed has been doing so for just over a week (ever since Mazzy stopped the yowling). This morning at 5 a.m., he decided he wanted some recognition for that, I suppose, because he smacked me in the face with his paw. Then he repeated that little gesture every half an hour, gradually extending his claws each time. What do my cats have against me sleeping anyway?

And, not only that, but Mazzy has picked up Emmett's habit of trying to stick her head in my water glasses. EVERY time I set a glass down now, I have to defend it from her.

REALLY?!

DesMoines

Never been there. Never been to Iowa. (It is in Iowa, right? I always get Idaho and Iowa confused, being that I've never been to either of them, they're both short words that start with I, and they're both way the hell out west somewhere. Have I mentioned my geography is terrible? My geography is HORRIBLE.)

DesMoines is important in the Graceless lexicon because it was code between my old boss and me. He and I worked together for nine years. Sometimes, he said, he'd feel like we were having a normal conversation and then all of a sudden he found himself in DesMoines and he didn't know how he got there. (Usually, I would back up and trace my thoughts for him -- "Well, we were talking about X which made me think of Y and then you said Z which brought me to G in my head and that's why I said H just now." Most times, things would make more sense then. Sometimes, not so much. My brain is a strange and scary place, even for me.)

So, anytime I lost him, he'd say, "We're in DesMoines."

Here's the thing: I am all about context.

This same former boss used to get a little annoyed with me, because any time he would mention a year, I would say, "I was X years-old." He thought this was me rubbing in the fact that he was basically old enough to be my father. It wasn't. Really, not even a little. It's just how my brain works.

For example, my mom died just over nine months ago. What do I keep thinking? If I had gotten myself pregnant right around the time she died, I'd be having a baby right around now. Does this mean my biological clock is ticking out of control? No. It's just that that's the most obvious thing to link to that amount of time.

Here's how I translate other blocks of time:
8 hours = a work day
6.5-7.5 hours = about how long it takes to drive home to NY
3 hours = a derby practice
2 hours = a movie
1 hour = an episode of most tv shows, or the time it takes to get to Portland
1/2 an hour to 45 minutes = time to travel to various places (depending on the amount of time)
7 minutes = the time it takes to microwave a Stouffer's macaroni and cheese dinner

Two years is how long I spent in grad school, or how long I played roller derby -- depends on the situation which one I think about. Two and a half years is the amount of time my mom was really sick. Four years is the span of college (or high school, but since college was more recent, it usually wins).

As my old boss figured out, I do it with years, too. Anything from 1943-1953, I think about how old my dad would've been. Anything from 1953-1975, I think about how old my mom was. Anything from 1975-1979, I think how old my sister was, or how many years it was before I was born. Anything after 1979, I calculate my own age at the time or what grade I was in. If it's around 1982, I might think about how old my little sister was. With some years, I think about significant things that happened then (graduations, deaths, major world events, etc.).

I'm kind of random, I admit that, but not as much as you might think. Inside the creepy, dark recesses of my brain, there are all these fine little webs that tie things together.

And maybe that's what happened to my grandpa in those last years before he died: The webs got untied. He couldn't link things together anymore, and that's why he forgot. For that last little bit, he pretty much lived in DesMoines.

Nemesisisisis

Remember that crappy season of Buffy (two words for you: "Doublemeat Palace")? To be fair, two of my three favorite episodes (the musical and the one where they all get amnesia) were in that season. And Willow turning out to be The Big Bad -- that was GENIUS. But, the season as a whole, kinda sucky. You know it's true. The one thing that always makes me chuckle, though, is the way the group of dweebs could never seem to pronounce "nemeses."

Thursday = my nemesis.

I've been saying this for a while. In fact, I was looking at some old blogs a couple weeks ago and I realized that Thursdays were sucking for me even before my mom died. Stupid effing Thursday.

I'm sitting here right now feeling like I could burst into tears any second...and kind of hoping I just would. It would be a relief to just have done with it. Y'know?

I've had a fairly ridiculous week. Monday morning, I was about to pull into the parking lot at work, and there was a cop car blocking the way. I went around the block, came back, and got about as far as the parking lot when I noticed the blue lights in my rearview. "Pausing isn't stopping," the cop said. At least I got off with a warning.

Last night, I missed being run over by an old lady (and you wonder why I hate old people?!) by inches - literally. If I had not moved out of the way, she would have grazed me. It's not like I wasn't standing there holding a very bright umbrella over my head. It wasn't like I wasn't in the crosswalk long before she approached me. A couple of guys in a car on the street perpendicular shouted, "Whoa!" through their open windows. THAT is how close.

And even as I sit here sighing heavily with my eyes aching from all the weight, I still see the obvious silver linings here: no ticket for running the stop sign by my office, not ACTUALLY getting run over by the oblivious old lady.

When, oh when, did I become an optimist?

I don't like it....

Lovely

Here's how I know I'm a total emotional basket case right now: I can't even collage.

Not being able to write is one thing (a sad thing, but not an unusual thing), not being able to read is a little more rare (but it has happened before), but not being able to make a collage is new for me. I usually just sit down with quotes I've been collecting (I'm always collecting them) and pictures I like (I usually collect those, too) and I just randomly put them together. Sometimes, it even comes out looking pretty.

The last several days, I haven't been focused enough to even write a coherent e-mail. I haven't been focused enough to read much (which kind of kills me -- I love to read, always have). And tonight I discovered I just couldn't collage.

I know why I'm so distracted (Saturday was my mom's birthday). I know that these feelings of discombobulation will eventually pass. But, it doesn't make being in a funk any easier.

Here's what has:

I'd planned another event modeled on the Beckoning of Lovely for Saturday and although the turnout was quite small, it was pretty lovely and it distracted me for a couple of hours. It was very hot, and I made an offhand comment about going to the movies (airconditioning!) and so my friend Kate suggested we go to see Inception.

The movie blew my mind for all the reasons it's been blowing other people's minds.

But, it was more than that.

Instead of being a real grownup and doing my laundry on Sunday, I went to see it again. Things made more sense the second time. Both times, I was struck by the character Arthur. It's not just that I liked the character (although he was my favorite in the movie). It's not just that the character was well-written (although he was). It's the way the actor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) delivers one very simple line about midway through the movie.

When Ellen Page's character asks him about the lead character's dead wife, he says, "She was lovely."

(It's not the coincidence of the word choice that gets me, although I do find that interesting, too....)

Something about the way he looks when he says it, the way he says it, just reaches right into my chest and stops my heart for a second.

Before Kate and I saw the movie Saturday night, we wandered around the bookstore. In true Graceless fashion, I had planned to not spend any money and ended up charging $73 worth of books before I left. One of the books was Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.

I finished reading the book tonight (when I say I can't read, I don't mean it literally -- I mean that I can't sit and read for hours and hours and hours on end like I normally could). About midway through the book, Levithan writes about a community's reaction to the death of a football player: "I vowed then and there that I would never hesitate to speak up to the people I loved. They deserved to know they gave meaning to my life. They deserved to know I thought the world of them."

And then it hit me.

I went to the pile of materials I'd amassed for my next collage and I selected a handful of quotes (most from Libba Bray or the To Write Love on Her Arms blogs) and several origami butterflies I'd made. (I am not particularly skilled with origami butterflies specifically or origami in general.) I wrote the selected quotes on the butterflies. I made copies of the passage from Boy Meets Boy. I put these things together in an envelope and tomorrow I will be mailing them to five friends. (There would be more, but I ran out of butterflies. Mayhaps more will go out soon....)

The five butterflies are headed to a somewhat haphazardly selected group of people, but they are all people who mean a lot to me and people I wanted to make sure knew that I love them, that I think they're lovely.

It's not a magic cure-all by any means. But, I can feel the funk starting to shrink away just a bit. The lesson in this? When all else fails, share a bit of your heart with the people who matter to you. It might just make a difference.

Do you make a lot of jewelry?

That's what this guy asked me as I stood in the aisle at Michael's trying to pick out a chain for one of my mom's unmatched earrings. He then proceeded to talk to me for several minutes, all the while I was standing there thinking, "Wow, he's hitting on me. I can't believe he's hitting on me. In a craft store. And, he's not obviously creepy. Awkward, but not creepy. Or obviously deranged. Or old. Definitely not old. And he doesn't seem to be homeless. Wow. How weird is that? Oh, hey, he's STILL talking to me."

It must've been the dress. I purposely wore my blue ruffled undies today because my sundress is a bit on the short side. I know I should probably give it to Goodwill, but I love this dress.

Anyway, the fact that this awkward guy came on to me is remarkable because stuff like that never happens -- unless the guy IS creepy or deranged or old or homeless. Or a combination of any of those things. Really.

And now I'm going to recycle a blog I wrote in December in a super secret location:

I finally went to the Laundromat and this creepy (and I mean CREEPY) guy was sitting a few feet away (did I mention he was reading Stephen King?).

I’m settling down with my book, and out of nowhere, he asks me my name. Had I been thinking, I would have given him a fake name.

MINOR TANGENT:

There was this time in high school that I was at the mall with Stacey and several others (although I don’t remember who else) and these boys on the second level called down to me to stay where I was, they were coming down.

(I called it a game of “Let’s laugh at the ugly girl.” Now, I don’t think I’m exactly ugly. I have very pretty eyes with long eyelashes, which is supposed to be a good thing, or so I’m told. I’m not hideous, but I’m not a knockout, either. I turn heads in a “wow, that girl is odd” kind of way, rather than a “I want to nail her” kind of way. And that’s fine. As Ani DiFranco says, “Too pretty is also your doom, ‘cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room.”)

My other friends scattered, but I grabbed Stacey’s arm and made her stay with me. When the boys arrived and asked our names, we both gave aliases. I don’t remember hers. Mine was, I believe, Monique. I don’t really remember anything else about the incident, except that it made me feel like I was being laughed at, and I didn’t like it.

So, this guy asks my name and because I can’t think that fast on my feet anymore, I tell him my real name. And repeat it, because he can’t hear me.

I go back to reading.

He then tells me he thinks my bookmark is really cool. Okay. The bookmark I was using? My business card. I have tons of bookmarks at home (people think these are good gifts for some strange reason) but I almost never use one. I usually dogear. But this was a borrowed book. Sometimes I use a sticky note or a paperclip, but I didn’t have any of those around. So, I used my business card. And he thought it was cool. Really? Really?

This reminds me of high school, too, when Kim and Anthony used to have this game where they’d try to come up with the worst pickup line ever. (My favorite is still one of Anthony’s: God must be crying…because he lost an angel. Most of it had to do with how Anthony delivered it.)

When I tell him my bookmark is just my business card, he asks where I work. I tell him I work for the state. He asks where. I say, “the health department.” But he doesn’t hear me. I repeat myself several times, finally kind of yelling, “Maine CDC, the Center for Disease Control.” That finally seemed to shut him up.

It’s not nearly as bad as when I got semi-stalked by the insanely creepy guy at Bubba’s two Lucky Lass Throwdowns ago, but it was pretty icky. If there is a creepy/deranged/homeless/old man within 10 feet who is the least bit emotionally unstable, he will hit on me. (No one else hits on me, BTW. Unless you count when Thighs Queen used to call me “Beautiful Graceless” — which actually did make me feel sorta beautiful — but I’m absolutely certain she wasn’t actually hitting on me, that’s just her way.)

DO I GIVE OFF A VIBE? Really, I want to know. What is it about me that draws in these creepy/pervy/CRAZY men? (this reminds me of the scene in Garden State when Mark asks why it’s never a hot chick who wants to talk your ear off about some stupid pyramid scam….)

Because, if some stranger wants to flirt with me, I really won’t mind in the slightest if it’s a hot chick with red hair (although I suppose that last part is optional) or a very funny, geeky boy. Why doesn’t THAT ever happen?