Frustrations of the Season

It hasn’t precisely been a bad summer… work is sucking eggs and Mother Nature is trying to either kill us or drive us insane with the weather patterns she’s created for Summer 2021… but there is plenty that is going right, as well. 

It’s just that this summer seems particularly rife with petty frustrations - things that shouldn’t warrant even a blip on life’s radar, but which nonetheless have assumed a significance that feels positively epic. My assumption is that things seem particularly irksome because we’ve had 17 months of playing tug-of-war with the universe and are all a little short of patience. 

Whatever the reason… I’m still ready to hit things.

So I’ve turned to Practicing Pollyanna.

Gritting your teeth because you just spent $30 and 5 hours getting, trimming, and prepping a board to repair your window frame, only to discover your father went rogue during construction and you can’t actually use your Wood of Great Effort and Expense?

     Jz Wants To: Beat someone with the now-useless trimmed and painted board.

     Pollyanna Sez: Find some clapboards to trim and jury-rig - and be grateful you had them.

Devastated that your special once-a-year birthday splurge on the chocolate-dipped-with-shots bowl at Coldstone Creamery ended up all over the parking lot? 

     Jz Wants To: Wail like an 8-year old

     Pollyanna Sez: Remind yourself that you’d eaten most of the ice cream and that at least the mess didn’t land inside your car. 

Frustrated that your lawn is nothing but dirt and crabgrass while your gravel driveway has filled in with a profusion of healthy grass?

     Jz Wants To: Rail at the universe and fret over the expense of chemicals and seed.

     Pollyanna Sez: Appreciate the fact that you were given free resources to perform transplants and giggle over the thought that your lawn is now sporting hair plugs.

Maddened by the fact that the only thing flourishing in your garden this year are the 4.5-foot tall coneflowers that are growing RIGHT where you need to place your 6-foot ladder?

     Jz Wants To: Trample the flowers in a fit of pique

     Pollyanna Sez: Grudgingly finesse the ladder into place… and admire the picture it makes.

 I hope July is being good to all of you!

Lexicological Land Mines

If you’ve read here any length of time, you’ll know that I tend to bumble my way through life. I’ve never really found my niche, nor have I ever really found my anchor. (Well, SP is kind of my rock but that’s a different type of mooring than I mean. He gives my soul a center … but I still haven’t found my place.) 

Despite the worries created by my aimless existence, however, one thing I can still claim to my credit is a very strong sense of self. I don’t always like the person I am, but I accept her. Even in my younger and more socially-eager days, I didn’t put a lot of effort into trying to change in order to fit in better. I may have spent a lot of time in thinky-thought, pondering how different I was from those around me, but it was a purely academic exercise. For all the why-ing and mandatory existential angst, I never seriously considered the need for any real change. I was me, they were them, we just all needed to figure out how to get along. (And I am only prepared to do my 50% portion of that, thank you very much.)

A positive side effect of this innate arrogance confidence is that it makes a person fairly adaptable. Self-acceptance leaves you with the space to accommodate differences and discoveries. For example, as I’ve said before, when I realized I was submissive, it was a bit of a surprise but it didn’t profoundly alter my sense of identity - it was simply another thing to incorporate.

Despite that lofty claim, however, there are some descriptors that are just never going to fly - and BG stumbled onto one of them the other night. He was doing his usual pre-playtime ramping up of the heat, a thing at which he is extremely skilled. This man can use words to reduce me to a puddle of goo quicker than about anyone I’ve known. However, words can be tricky. Many have a range of meanings and nuances and the primary definition for one person may not be the first to mind for another…

So, I’m reasonably sure than when he called me “subservient”, he meant to focus on the way in which I am “prepared to obey unquestioningly”. I, however, felt like he was calling me “useful in an inferior capacity”… and that is just not a sentiment destined to heat my loins. 

     “Different capacity” - I have no problem with. 

     “Inferior”? - It’s time for you to go home now…

But until we have a chance to get that sorted out, I politely requested that he rethink his use of that particular word. And thankfully, because he is also a thinking guy, he simply said, “Whoops! Sorry that struck a nerve. It’s submissive you are” … and moved right on to fueling more heat.

I love a man who understands the power of nuance... and how to avoid a landmine.

My Week of Baader Meinhof Phenomenon

(Also apparently called “blue car” or “red car” syndrome? I dunno. I just googled, “phrase for learning a word then seeing it everywhere”… because I knew it had a name!)

Anyhow, my new word has induced a great deal of brain cramp, so naturally I need to share!

Watts the Safeword (a YouTube channel which I really enjoy) released a video last week in which Amp has his third coming out. First gay, then kinky, now he’s adding “demisexual” to his identifiers. I had never heard of this term (which has apparently been around for 15 years - Way to keep up with the times, Jz!) but nonetheless, I learned something new. Three days later, I was seeing headlines in the news about Andrew Cuomo’s daughter coming out as demisexual. (I kind of question the newsworthiness of this revelation but hey, at least I knew what they meant!) Since then, it has popped up in a number of places and I'm feeling bludgeoned by the term.

(And for those of you who are in the same boat I was before watching Amp’s video, here’s the standard definition of demisexual: feeling sexual attraction towards another person only after establishing an emotional bond with that person.)

Now, before we go any further - the reason for the excessive brain time is that this identifier rings profoundly true to me.

And yet, frankly, I struggle with its relevance.

Even after a week of thinky thoughts, I’m still having trouble coming to grips with how I feel about this new distinction I’ve learned.  

Because I won’t lie. altho’ this term fits me to a T… a large part of me thinks this is a genuinely ridiculous concept to create a flag around. 

I understand the want/need/desire for nearly all the other sexual identifiers, because those identities will impact the partners a person chooses. But being demisexual (or, “particular” as we old-fashioned folk might say) only impacts the people you do NOT choose - and frankly, I don’t think that’s anything that requires explanation. That certain people don’t make the cut is a fact of life that we must all learn to accept.

Yet despite my inclination to eye-roll over something that strikes me as largely a quibble… the funny thing is that, for once, this identification is actually something that made me feel better. I thought, “Oh! You mean that’s not just me being weird??” - and felt genuinely relieved. None of the other similar revelations in my life have had this kind of effect, not even when SP let the submissive genie out of the bottle. Submissive was a surprise - one which explained quite a lot… but I can’t say I felt relief - it was simply another thing to incorporate.

Nor was it the textbook definition that resonated with me at first. At least, not until Amp expanded on the meaning with a quote from Olivia Davis: “Demisexuality is about desire and arousal … It’s not merely that I’m only interested in having sex with people that I love, it’s also that I feel a complete absence of desire or sexual feelings towards everyone else. EVER. What makes me demisexual is that absence.” 

THOSE were the words that made relief wash through me.

Because that complete absence has long been a stumbling block for me. I have been baffled by the fact that I can be with a guy that, intellectually, I recognize as sheer, unadulterated sex on a stick… and yet not feel the tiniest flicker of attraction. I’ve actually wondered at times if I could be asexual - except that when I’m with someone I am actually attracted to, I kind of go from zero to 60 in 4 seconds flat... so it’s not that I don’t have a libido. Yet I truly do not seem to experience the same level of itchiness during periods of drought that others talk about. 

SP often scolds me for over-thinking everything (not without reason) and I have genuinely spent a lot of time worrying that maybe this seemingly-peculiar refusal to go a-lookin’ for partners was caused by my overly-active brain. Was I thinking myself into a stunted life? Prods and urgings by friends seemed to indicate that they thought so. Could they be right?

So it really, truly felt wonderful to receive some validation that all my lack of action is not inevitably because I’m afraid or I’m overthinking or I’m just a plain ol’ nebbish. The realization that others also feel this way was actually HUGE for me. 

Additionally, this need for emotional ties to create desire also explains why, for years now, my body has known when a relationship is over long before I consciously realize we’re at the end. My libido is aware of disruption before my mind has seen past the habits of partnerships.

So this seemingly silly identifier is actually responsible for quite a number of pieces falling into place, worries being soothed and puzzling behaviors getting explained. I find myself a walking example of the validity of the term.

And yet, I can't stop shaking my head over it…

A Bit Surprising...

So here we are, emerging from a pandemic and ready to get our lives back to normal. 

Wheeee!

Except… what’s normal now?

Because like it or not, things have changed. Fifteen months is time enough to shift lifestyles and ingrain new habits and I’m finding that a lot of people are not the same as I remember. (Probably including me, but those changes seem more natural.) 

Has this happened to any of you?

You chat with a dear friend and find yourself thinking, “When did you get so boring?”

Or is that just me?

Interestingly, this effect seems most apparent in my Type A personality friends. I’m not a psychologist, so I won't even attempt any armchair analyzing of How This Happened. All I know is that some of my friends have forgotten how to talk to others. I’ve lost count of the number of conversations in which I’m either having my feet held to the fire as I'm grilled for minute details, or I'm not given the time to get a word in edgewise. 

I realize none of this is intentional but it’s trying, nonetheless. These are still wonderful people and I still care for and about them - but our worlds have shifted. Our lives are not as aligned as they once were, and it’s going to be more effort than I’d anticipated to keep the connecting doors open.

The problem is, that requires patience -  which is not my finest quality even at the best of times, much less after the year we’ve all had. 

*inserts contemplative pause*

It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

    Says the woman planning her summer around her Type B chums...

Yard Sale Adventures

I was committed to hosting one ("Location, location, location!") but not actually ready for it. The day arrived, however... and at some point, you have to just say, “All this is really going to cost me is some heavy lifting and a day” … and just go for it.

Monetarily, the results reflected my preparedness. I made some money but not a killing. 

The people-watching, however, was priceless.

A very handsome, engaging man (higher on the “attractive-to-Jz” scale than the new neighbor and more age-appropriate as well,) spent several lovely minutes beaming and telling me how happy I had made him by selling him my old wok. (If only it were always that easy to enchant men!)

A vivacious young woman in a vibrantly colored tube top jump suit (which she wore over an extremely pedestrian brassiere) hopped out of her car, marched straight to two of the larger items for sale and handed me the asking price with no haggling. (“These will be perfect for my work!”) Carrying the pieces triumphantly over her head (showing both an impressive amount of upper body strength and a significant increase of visible bra), she surfer-walked them to her car and then fought with her husky to “Move over and make room!” 

She made me smile - and feel very old at the same time…

One young boy was so enthralled with his new model car that he walked straight into the pedestal sink, forcing his mother to perform a leap of heroic distance to body-check the teetering porcelain before it toppled onto the lad’s brother.

A crotchety old lady bulldozed her way through my front hedges and complained about stubbing her toe on the big telephone pole anchor which is embedded beneath the hedges - the one that belongs to the utility company and which I cannot do anything about. (And by the way madam, why are you walking through my hedges in the first place?) She then bitched at me for not planting some grass seed to cover the large bare patches in lawn and turned, empty-handed, to barge her way back through the hedges - stubbing her toe a second time and turning back to yell, “See? This is a hazard!"

I called a polite, “Thank you for bringing it to my attention” while my sister-in-law, who is the most Christian of women, muttered, “Some people!” beneath her breath.

Not every encounter was that notable but they were all fun. Men hopping out of their trucks to ask if I have any marbles (“Nope, I’ve lost all of mine!”), women getting excited about potholders, that kind of thing. Mostly, we just met people and were reminded that we live in a community, not a bubble. We greeted and smiled, chatted and waved goodbye. 

Now it's time for the next step... the rented dumpster!

Things I Have Learned Since We Last Spoke

Well, *that* month sure got away from me! I figured I'd better stick my head in and say, "hi!" ... and maybe let you know what's been going on - which is basically, a lot of challenges and lessons learned. So here you go...

This room re-do project that I’ve landed myself in (and which has taken over my life) has necessitated a lot of googling. Of course, you need to take everything you read with a grain of salt, but I figured I was safe using advice from This Old House guy, right? 

Well, he may be the grand old man of home restoration - and indeed, I have learned many useful things from his website -  but not every recommendation is equally useful. In fact, “…switch to a roller for the rest of the paint job—you’ll still be able to coat the grooves of paneled walls just fine.”, while exciting to read, is a downright fib.  

Yep, Bob Vila lies.

On the subject of instructions, I came across this doozy when I unboxed the new sewing machine I finally broke down and bought:

I’m getting too old for the nonsense of the day.

Because, life… this project has been full of minor catastrophes and set-backs. To wit:

Tiles have been broken.

Sixty-year old adhesive does not inevitably disintegrate with age.

Thriftily, I used clear waterproof caulk left over from the worlds longest bathroom renovation to re-glaze a window I’d stripped down to bare wood. BG took one look at the tube and said, “Umm, you realize that’s not paintable caulk, right?” One trip to the hardware store, two tubes of the correct caulk, 6 small and 2 large window panes later, I was back at the point I had thought already achieved.

Frugality does not always save either time OR money.

Do not hold freshly painted metal objects in one hand over a concrete floor.

I don’t think I’m going to explain that one - I’ll just set it down and walk away…

The delays have caused me to really buckle down on the project, spending a good chunk of time every day stretching and contorting and otherwise giving my not-so-young and very out-of-shape body reasons for protest. It has retaliated with (in chronological order) a severe bout of vertigo, some pretty intense lower back pain, and (most recently) the triumphant return of my undiagnosed “-itis”. (I suspect “burs” rather than “arthr”, but cannot be certain.) I know from experience that the only thing that helps this is rest, but I can’t be stopping for every little ache and pain, so I tape it up and forge ahead.

It is possible to paint without the use of opposable thumbs.

(I will not speak to the quality of the work, however…)

Not all my gains in knowledge have come from the room redo, however.

Work has thrown me a good challenge.

(See my upcoming book, “Big Sur, M1 chips, and The Art of Privacy Permissions”)

So has my dominant.

Never say you don’t think you can possibly come one more time.

(“Challenge Accepted! ”)

Finally, I’ve been reminded that it’s never a good idea to go longer than 30 hours without a shower - because you never know when you might meet your new (cute, male) neighbor.

*le sigh*

Anyhow, that’s life by me.

How are YOU guys doing??

Oops! I almost forgot Spock & Friends! This one feels appropriate after so long...

Secular Sacrilege

I wondered if there might be some sort of Spock Easter greeting out there, so I googled…

       and stumbled across this horror:

Now, I love absurdity as much as the next person, 

but some ideas are really best left undeveloped.

After that disturbing image, I think we could all use a little art therapy to soothe our nerves ...

A happy little Easter egg to you all!