Things I Learned on Vacation

It’s only mildly horrifying to me that I was actually AFRAID to take time off. Times is bleak, and my alcoholic mind had me soundly convinced that disappearing from my jobsite for more than 6 hours would result in my immediate replacement. It’s a typical workaholic trap, conning yourself into believing that your work-world will stop spinning in your absence and in your exhaustion holding out that you’re the most disposable employee to ever grace God’s Earth. It’s an easy and predictable way for my disease to rob me of any peace, and I was officially down for the count by the time I put my PTO request in.

Frankly, I would have totally called my bosses and screamed, “HAHAHA! I was just joshing about the vacation. I know how much you need me, I would never dream of leaving you. YOU DO NEED ME, RIGHT?” had I not been completely laid out by a moving vehicle the Monday before my departure. That sufficiently shook me up enough, to call Uncle, to surrender to my need to shut down and turn off.

So Thursday came and I scurried around my disaster of a bedroom trying to put together as many outfits as I could cram into my travel bag. That didn’t work, so I ran out and bought a SECOND travel bag, and stuffed that one full too. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived DC and discovered that I didn’t have a single thing to wear. Best laid plans, right?

I brought my LEED book with me to study on the train. I had a 4 hour ride ahead of me, and I was planning on sucking every last minute of it dry, for maximum productivity. Instead, I found myself aimlessly staring out the window watching trailer parks come and go in my line of vision. I tried to open the book, but it literally jumped right back out of my hands like it was electrically charged. So for the first time in many, many moons I did: Not a Damn Thing. I just sat there and let it be quiet. I sort of let the trauma of the last week wash over me, and through me, under me and everywhere. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but I stayed quiet. Sometimes a girl just need to sit and navel gaze, and when that time comes, nothing else will do.

Lizzie was waiting for me at the train station and although DC was every bit as busy as NYC, it was noticeably happier. I found this profoundly disturbing. Of course I had gone on vacation to enjoy myself, but I was not convinced that I could shuck off my surliness with so little preparation. I immediately lit a cigarette, fixed a fakish smile to my face, and bravely set foot into my vacay.

The first night was a little rocky, because I was still totally confrontational NYC style. A random homeless dude started serenading us and I completely lost my shit.

“Will you just FUCK OFF already? Jesus H! What are you, high? Nobody wants your busted compliments, bro. Fuck off, fuck off, FUCK OFF!”

Lizzie stared at me aghast, but quickly recovered herself like the true lady she is. Telling loudmouthed assholes to fuck off had been my favorite pastime when I left the city, but it didn’t jive so well against the backdrop of Dupont Circle. And yet, I was relaxing despite myself, and this became crystal clear when we sat down to dinner.

It was like I had never eaten a decent meal before in my life, it was fucking mouthwatering, it was…..Chilean Seabass. Miso and Mirin Marinated Chilean Seabass. Why didn’t anybody tell me about Chilean Seabass before? How long has this shit been around? Am I the last to know everything?

I was so impressed with Chilean Seabass that I had it for dinner for EVERY night of my vacation. I tried to have it for breakfast one day too, but that didn’t pan out.

Friday was much sweeter, more gentle. Lizzie went to work and I stayed behind in her completely DOPE apartment. Her building had an unbelievable gym in it (which oddly none of the other tenants seemed interested in) so I spent a few hours down there, getting my tone on. I went to Whole Foods and got down with some organic, and I strolled in the sunshine. Strolling rocks, fyi. I usually hit Broadway in a full-blown gallop, but I think DC seduced me back into the sauntering fold.

Anyways….

Lizzie got home from work and we motored off to my second DC meeting. We got dinner on the waterfront (more Chilean Seabass, WHAT?!?!?) and then hit a hookah bar. I can’t remember who brought up the psychic idea first, but whoever thought it up deserves all of the gold stars in the universe because that shit BLEW MY HEAD APART.

She was Lebanese with bleached blonde hair and a wonky eye (which I thought lent tremendous credibility to the whole scenario) and the second she took hold of my palms, she knew everything there was to know about me.

She knew that I have an unquenchable appetite for tall, dark, and handsome, bad boys. (Who are apparently no good for me)
She knew that I have a love, passion, and fear for my writing.
She knew that I was lacking the confidence to pursue anything creative as a career front.
She knew that I have a big, big problem with shopping and spending.
She knew that I have a big, big problem with stress and aggravation.

She told me:

None of the men around me are really worth my time right now.
Just after my birthday a blonde man will be coming who is a match for me (I’ll recognize him because I will find him boring, but she swears that’s a good thing)
It’ll be 2 or 3 years easy before I have the confidence to live my destiny and create for a living.
I’ll be back in school by the fall.
I’ll live into my 90’s (which kind of scares the bejesus out of me. I’ve always looked forward to dying young. Hmmm.)

Lizzie almost fell out of her chair a few times, and I just sort of sat there with my jaw on the ground. It was a magical thing, but not always happy or safe. Her biggest revelation was that construction was a very temporary occupation for me. She stressed again and again that money isn’t everything, and the work I’m doing now is NOT MY CALLING. Seeing as I’ve been actively killing myself to make my job work out for me, I wasn’t too thrilled to hear that. She said nine more months and then I would have to quit. They’ll throw money at me, and I’ll have to decide what’s more important, money or my wellbeing.

We started scribbling down our prophecies when we got home and planning out Saturday…..

To be continued….

M*therf*cking M*nday.

I’m back in the normal NYC hustle and bustle after five blissful days of vacation. It’s alright, I suppose. I seem to have retained some of the peaceful equanimity I picked up in DC, and I certainly had a mind-expanding spiritual experience. Mind-expanding spiritual experiences should accompany EVERY vacation or you really haven’t gotten your money’s worth, in my opinion. Trust.

But before there was Paid Time Off there was the impending Nervous Breakdown. I’ve been as forthright and honest as I could be about the fact that the last few months for me were holy shit storms of stress and aggravation (almost entirely work-related). Well, last week, just when I was convinced it was as bad as it could possibly get, it got worse.

Mondays are rarely awesome, but some Mondays set a tone for the week so outrageously horrible, that you find yourself praying for a quick and merciful death in lieu of the work week you find yourself facing. I had that very Monday. The day started with typical client complaints because I was trying to schedule inconvenient but necessary construction into their occupied space. So I gave up trying to get my workers where they needed to go and then my bosses RIPPED ME NEW ASSHOLES for not aggressively scheduling my work fast enough. It was raining and cold and I dressed for sunshine. I was four days off sugar and trying not to drink coffee, so I couldn’t really articulate my standard quick responses, and it was noticed. And commented on, frequently. I ended up just grinding the work day out. I absolutely could not wait to get home so I skipped the AA meeting, and went straight for the subway. I got off at my stop, and started trudging home with my head down against the rain when some Asshole in a beat up Toyota decided to bounce me off his windshield.

I got hit by a fucking car? WHAT?!?!? Did that really happen? Am I alive? Am I hurt? No, I’m…..what the fuck am I feeling right now………oh that’s right, ANNOYED.

The cops came, the firemen came, the ambulance came, and 40 minutes later I was allowed to continue walking home in the rain. The Asshole never got a ticket, but I was extremely lucky to have not been killed, so I let it be. I had only been home, shaking, for a few hours when I got a mildy poisonous text message from a newly sober girl who I had agreed to collaborate with on a recovery book. She had arranged for us to meet with a literary agent the next day (that meeting was set weeks ago) but decided to cancel the meeting, using my car accident as an excuse, until we could “get on the same page”. I used the cancellation of the meeting as an excuse to liberate myself from a book proposal that was just not sitting right in my conscience.

The long and short of it is, I had seduced myself with dreams of book related fame and glory (and an escape from construction). And she was such a talented writer in her own right, that it was hard not to get excited about the idea of what we could create together. But something kept needling me in the dark hours of the night, and the more I ignored it, the more signs of strain started popping up in our burgeoning partnership. At that moment, it became pretty undeniable. I'm in no position to be telling other sober women how to live happy, useful lives. I'm certainly in no position to be collecting money off of my proposed "solutions". I am still, obviously, trudging away to learn how to do that for myself. I know that I have books in me, but that's going to happen in Divine Time, not according to a schedule I try to force on myself.

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to tally up my day. Gnarly, shitty work day, and I would rather carve out my eyeballs than go back. Fantasy book deal completely SHUT DOWN by me, no less. And hit by a car. If my karma is now bad enough for me to be getting hit by cars, what kind of a realistic life expectancy can I have in NYC? Maybe 6 months? A year? How does one go about spiritually rebounding from an experience like this?

I took Tuesday off, and thank everything that is Holy and True, I had scheduled a vacation for that Thursday. Wednesday was spent at work showing off my bruises and contemplating the deeper meaning of what had just happened. Was my HP telling me to LITERALLY check myself before I wrecked myself? My soul’s radar may not be the strongest, but it is there. And past experience has revealed to me, that when everything in my life goes fucking BOOM at the same time, it’s because I’ve strayed too far from Divine Will for me. My course is always in need of correction at that time, and this time around I suppose, the Holy Powers That Be decided a car/body collision was the only way to snap me out of my workaholic trance.

So I decided to surrender, yet again, to God’s Will. I prayed all day, I prayed all night, and the next day, and the day after that, for him to show me what exactly he had in mind for me. I promised to take his guidance seriously this time, and set aside my own ambitions and agendas.

Ask and ye shall receive, no? I got the divine instructions, over the next five days of my vacation. Jesus, I was really getting ready to sell myself short there. And that, kids, is the moral of my story. My meager mortal plans for myself are nowhere near as fitting, amazing, and BIG as the plans of my higher power. If I stick with my will, I end up with fuckall. I surrender to The Only Will that Really Matters Because He Always Wins Anyways, I get the power and the glory and the kingdom. Forever and ever, man.

Who knew?

Ingenue

Let's try this again, shall we?

I am having a really lovely, enjoyable life experience right here in this moment. This is a good thing, because I had a fucking miserable week. I mean really goddam grueling. I could sit here and list off all of the external forces bringing me down (I blame the MAN) but the truth of the matter is, I'm miserable and I'm making myself sick. I'm hurting alot, and the more I try to make the pain go away, the worse it gets.



I've bleached myself out, I've shopped myself silly, I've starved, I've binged, I've smoked, I've caffienated, I've raged, I've withdrawn, I've worked, I've run miles and NOTHING gives me a moments peace. I just keep running faster and faster and faster.



I'm tired now. I don't want to run anymore.



So where does that leave me? If I can't live with my external pleasure traps, and I CERTAINLY can't live without them, what the hell am I supposed to do?



I'll do the only thing that can be done in a situation like this, a first step.



"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable"



Unmanageable. Unmanageable?!?!?! Again? But I'm sober now! And I manage really important and stressful construction, why can't I manage my own internal shit? This can't be happening again, it can't be. And yet, here I am.



I cannot make it through my work days without making an emergency shopping stop halfway through the days.



I made myself throw up three nights ago after a sugar bender gone awry. SUGAR, Jesus Wept! I'm eating it by the pounds to alleviate the emotional turmoil inside me.



I cannot manage my emotions, I never could. I am powerless over my pain and my attempts to shove it back down. I am powerless over alcohol and my life is the definition of unmanageable. You know, I actually started admitting that last night, and ever since, my life has been noticeably nicer. Acceptance and surrender work miracles, I've known this for a while.

pow·er·less
(pour-ls)
adj.
1. Lacking strength or power; helpless and totally ineffectual.
2. Lacking legal or other authority.

I am powerless over alcohol, I am powerless over my own emotions, I'm powerless over BOYS, I'm powerless over work.

E

Blonde Ambition

When I was a little girl eagerly awaiting adolescence, there was nothing in the world I wanted more than my own Style. None of the other girls at that age had any Style either, but their Mom's did, and every morning they showed up to school perfectly primped and coiffed (In over-sized Gap sweatshirts and side ponytails, as was the style then). The Moms with Style always managed to dress their daughters in a balance between trendy timeless. Basically, they set the bar as to what you were supposed to look like in the 6th grade. And woe betide you if you couldn't fake the funk. Kids be vicious.

My Mom had absolutely no Style, but God bless her, she tried. She tried to dress me like DJ from Full House, but I usually ended up looking like a rumpled Kimmy Gibbler. Kimmy Gibbler with a Salt n Peppa asymetrical haircut, although I can't remember if that was Mommy's bright idea or mine. Suffice it to say, I was an absolute mess. I suffered endlessly for it. Adding insult to injury, we moved twice a year, so I was subject to regional bullying standards in, like, every state in the union. What's hot in Concord, NH is trash in Toledo, OH and I had to learn this the hard way. Over and over and over again.

My Mom would seriously spend our rent money for new outfits for me. I would come home begging for her to take me to the Mall, sobbing and crying because of the humiliation I had lived through that day in school. She and I would shop all night trying to find something for the next day, a perfect outfit that would win me friends, enhance my attention span in class, and make life bearable.

To this day, I haven't found an outfit that can do any of that. But I've never stopped looking.

These days, I do have Style. My alcoholic overcompensation to those childhood tortures was to create a BULLETPROOF external image that would morph into whatever I needed on any given day. I can take the temperature of any new city's fashion climate in 5.3 seconds flat. Before the end of my first night in a new home, I've changed my hair, revamped my wardrobe, and either gained or lost approximately 4 pounds to suit the level of curviness I think would be best to fit in with my new surroundings..

The things is, if I'm fairly mentally healthy and things are going well I dress down, I relax, I smile. If the shit is hitting the fan, I need 90 outfits in 90 days. And Manicures. And 60$ Lipgloss. And Caffienated Cellulite Cream that's probably a rip-off. And Perfect Eyebrows.

This is the state of mind I was in last night, when I decided to respond to an emotional crisis with a new dye job. For the last 2 years, I've been black haired, blue eyed Irish. My hair has been every length and style known to man, but the color scheme has stayed consistent for a minute. Sometime around 2:30 pm yesterday afternoon, black hair started to feel like the MOST AWFUL, most constraining, most wildly unnecessary burden to ever lay itself on my shoulders. I had to be blonde, and I had to be blonde, like, yesterday.

I called my stylist who is remarkably inconsistent in her abilities (to lazy to find a new one) and told her I'd pay her anything she wanted to give me Sienna Miller's golden shaggy bob. She swore it could be done, I booked it down there, sat through four or five scalp scarring bleach sessions, and then.......I was done. When she unveiled the finished product, all hell broke loose inside me.

"THIS IS NOT WHAT WE DISCUSSED IRMA!", I screamed. I swear to god, the entire shop came to a screeching halt. Everyone was giving up their undivided attention to the bitchy (and blonde) white girl losing her shit in the corner. "This. Is. Not. What. I. Asked. FOR. Where the fuck is my hair? Why is it orange?"

Irma just rolled her eyes at me, because unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened. Their was a Halloween Highlighting Incident (which I truly thought we had gotten past) and a Rihanna Wannabe Haircut Episode (you'd think I'd learn about asymmetrical cuts) but this one was a Defcon 2 level meltdown in the works. I was expecting to feel peaceful, sexy, and powerful in my new hair, and instead I saw my desperate sixth grade self staring back at me in the mirror.

I was not prepared. My new roomie had to scrape me off the sidewalk to get me home. Mind you, there's absolutely nothing wrong with my hair. I've actually gotten mad compliments on it this morning. But it wasn't what I was expecting. And my expectations must be met or chaos ensues.

Sigh. Isn't that always the point? My expectations always lead me astray. They promise me happiness and contenment and instead deliver me frantic scrambling, grasping consumptions. The more I try and satisfy my desires, the more desires I have. And I still can't get no satifaction.

But when it comes to outward appearances, I cannot be trusted. I am a Chameleon to the fifth power, and powerfully deceptive to boot. The more I try to control the "image" I am presenting the less control I have over my reality. God, I am really this much of a control freak? Huh. Who knew?

But today, I still have the drama and the wreckage of my past from yesterday to deal with. No amount of hair bleach can take that away. Although, I will admit that I'm about to do a minor Sephora shopping bender and probably a mani-pedi.

That's just me chasing my bliss.

Ing

Goddammit, Hotmail.

My Hotmail is such a perpetual source of misery for me. Emailing in general sits on top of my latest shitlist, with good reason. It is not a clear, concise method of communication but it masquerades as an easy, breezy conversation tool. Text bombing can fuck right off too. I'm so over e-bonding. I refuse to dedicate anymore time to trying to unravel obtuse emails, searching out emotional subtext and finding only inane emoticons.

For whatever reason, almost all of the difficult conversations in my life are pumped through my Hotmail. Like attracts like, you know, and I'm a busy girl who tends to avoid awkward conversations for the sake of productivity. So naturally, most of my closest relationships feature people with the exact same character defect.

It wasn't always this bad, but for the last 6 months every time I fire up my personal inbox I have this gnawing, gnashing dread in my stomach. My ex-roommate has a lot to do with this. Although I lived down the hall from him, whenever he had something unsavory to tell me, he'd email blast that shit at 8 in the morning. I'd be plugging along in my work day and I check my mail on my blackberry and all of the sudden, THERE HE'D BE. Reading me the riot act for some imagined slight, trying to make his money problems my issue, passive aggressive little shit-bombs that hit their mark every single time.

I have a low threshold for idiocy.

So I did the only mature and sober thing I could think to do. I blocked his email addresses.

The Evil One got used to getting big, firey emotional responses from me everytime he poked, so the first day that I didn't freak out via email response, he started to meltdown. He opted not to discuss the matter with me in person, that would have been a little too normal for us. Instead with three days my spam box started filling up with hundreds of emails with bizzare subject headers and Sci-Fi Sender Names. One such email, subjected: "I never stopped thinking about you" caught my attention and wouldn't let go. Upon opening it I discovered another one of the Weenie's misspelled rants.

is this your twisted version of restren of pen and tungue? why can't u be a better person? if u have to be that miserable you shold just drink, because u r a waste of sober life.

See what I mean? Charming, right?

These days the web trauma has branched out into other areas of my life My new sponsor seems to like conducting our sober business over text and email and it's just not working out for me. I send these emails out into the abyss crammed full with whatever is tanking me, and if (this is a Big If) I back it up with a text, a phone call, and another text, she may respond with a few sentences of her own. There's no eye contact, there's no back and forth, there's no body language. Everything's left up to interpretation and my alcoholic mind REELS when trying to get a grasp of another's online motives. She and I are still getting to know each other and emailing as opposed to talking in person DOES NOT A DAMN THING TO FACILITATE THAT.

(Also, you know how the bible says an eye for an eye? I firmly adhere to the doctrine of an email for an email. If I write you, hit the reply button. Common courtesy, there.)

And Facebook, don't get me started on Facebook. Facebook is born of Satan, and I think we all know that. I don't need any online social community tempting my stalker tendencies. Let those sleeping dogs lie, alright?

Basically, what it comes down to, is that I have been found guilty of making people jump through hoops to get my attention. When left to my own devices, I avoid and isolate...I bridge-burn and ignore. At some point my Hotmail kind of became like Switzerland to all of the warring factions in my life. They decided they could seek asylum in my inbox with their undetonated psychic bombs. And I've been left with the wreckage of that, an irretrievably broken relationship with online socializing.

Basically, I want to get off my computer and back into real life. This is my goal for the coming weeks. I can't change anyone else's behavior towards me, but I can def curb my own habits of avoidance! That's within my reach, baby, and I plan to bravely set foot into reality where fact is fact and fiction can be left alone.

Other than that, I'm praying, resting, detoxing, socializing, loving, healing, crying. More on that to come.

Cheers bebes,
Me