2010 was the year of much sadness, 2011 was the year of "hey, at least 2010 is over", and 2012 is "whoa, when did everybody get so irritating?" Like suddenly I'm not weeping and I've moved straight into gnashing of teeth. Also rending of garments, but that's more to do with the Hulk thing I've got going on than anything Shakespearian. ANYWAYS, what I wanted to say was that I've been super irritable in my head, and it sort of makes me not feel like writing, because what I want to write is this horrible Andy Rooney drivel that really should be more shut down than vented, even if venting would mean getting it off of me. My normal human irritations are to do with people who are oblivious to others: drivers that don't look before changing lanes, riders who stand in the doors of public transportation; the accidental shovers, nudgers, bumpers, etc that are the result of being self-absorbed in a world occupied by other humans. Now I've got those irritations with the volume up extra loud; I feel like, Oh, WOW people bug me. Even people I might normally like, it's like I'm just saturated with humanity and I can't take any more. Even when the actions themselves don't individually bother me I seem to have become equipped with an emotional subtext decoder; reading the purpose of actions (intended or not) sets me off like even if your fingernails didn't mean to drag on my chalkboard they totally did.

Anyway that's why I haven't been able to write much lately. Fear of spilling stupid.

HOWEVER I did have a great summer, for the most part, and as soon as I figure out how to tune my ukulele I'm sure I'll be singing nothing but happy tunes. Because one of the things that irritates me the very most is irritable people.

I am in a beautiful house in Oakland, looking up at clouds that seem heavy with rain, across rooftop patios with barbecue pits and lawn chairs, down into a garden with various vegetables growing (can't tell what from here). It is quiet but for upstairs feet moving around with the anonymity of neighbors you haven't met yet and may not meet. This is the most I have been alone in three weeks and the most space I have had to be alone in, and it is strange and nice and reflective. 

Today I went for hypnotherapy because I was curious what it would be like. What it is like is how it has been described to me, basically. I cried continuously through it because I tend to cry when I let other people close to my emotions; it's not a sad thing, it's just how my tear ducts respond to things crossing my emotional barbed wire. So I was in a room, or rather I was to find myself in a room where I felt safe and warm and comfortable etc., but as much as I wanted a room with velvet pillows and the three-inch thick rug I'd recently sunk my grateful toes into at my friend's apartment, These Things Are Not Practical. If I had the things that make me feel cozy I'd be fidgeting and cleaning them all the time; it would not be a soft warm space because I am not a soft warm person. I am maybe more functionalist than cozy or something. I tried but I kept winding up at what appeared to be my sister's opium den, I mean it was a lovely place to visit but it wasn't mine, and eventually I had to tell the poor hypnotherapist, who looked a lot like Julianne Moore, that I couldn't do it. She told me I could have a magical self-cleaning room and that was very nice of her, but those things are not REAL and what I wound up thinking mainly was that this is my problem, that I can't even IMAGINE pretty things without going all irritated and practical on myself. I even find it irritating in others, when their fantasies just won't work in reality, like why are they wasting so much time on this foolishness. 

Still, I thought that the therapy in general was good, at least as relaxing as a very good massage (and about the same price, so). The take-away message, as I understand it right now, was that it is okay to take some pride in the things about me that I didn't consciously make, which is a hard thing for me because it seems too much like vanity, frankly, but apparently somebody down inside me wants me to have a bit more vanity than we currently do, so maybe I'll try that out for a bit and see. 

What else? I keep getting lost, I mean like really entirely lost, which is ridiculous because I used to live here. I can't even be scared about it; it's more like amusing and awkward. 

Last time things hurt a lot more. Maybe next time I'll be entirely numb, I think, and that sounds pretty good, and then I think: but then what's the point? If there's no potential for pleasure, even if there is no potential for pain, then what is the purpose of opening oneself at all? If not this, if not that, then what. But then there are moments of pleasure in amongst the sharpness and the numbness, so it is not like shutting down entirely. I think it is better to think of it like a museum, where time is short and so what is lovely is lingered at and what is unlovely is passed and in this way we go through, looking and skipping and looking. I'm working on it. 

It could happen, after a night of tea and cakes and ices (in which tea is wine and cakes are cigarettes and ices are salty potato chips) that the moment might be not exactly forced to its crisis but perhaps there could be rain, too much to stand in but not too much to walk in, and so the story that needs to be told could unfold between raindrops, sheltered weakly with arms around waists and I feel the hip bone I knew once before still familiar under my fingers, walking past dooryards and the sprinkled streets, and when standing in front of the door to dare to disturb the universe with one hug, and another, and the kiss that is a bite which is consumed and is consuming, and a voice says you were always fun to kiss, and another voice laughs in the dark rain, and two heads cluster together in a secret and wish each other a good summer and are gone. 

An older couple, both overweight, walking down the street holding hands, matching bald spots

A teenager skipping down the hill

The sound of fireworks

A woman staring solemnly at herself in the rearview mirror

The streets entirely marked out in neon code

A man riding a bike and escorting another, riderless

A woman and a boy sitting on the sidewalk eating sandwiches, watching a road crew

I don't get particularly fraught about Hallmark holidays or holidays in general even (care about birthdays, sometimes find Christmas problematic since it comes in the middle of winter when I'm vulnerable), but I felt a little twinge (manipulated, totally fake, etc., and directly connected to tear ducts) over the Google doodle for Mother's Day. demmit. I have totally failed to indoctrinate my son. 

The temporary call center job I took, at which I really enjoy the work and my co-workers and the money and really loathe the management, went ugly last week. Specifically, I was bullied by management, was unprepared for the level of bullying, failed to stand up for myself, and had to run out crying from that horrid middle-school combination of fury and shame. Fortunately it appears that they are so clueless that they didn't even notice that I'd walked out two hours ahead of schedule so they totally beat up my feelings but at least they don't know.

I am lucky to be the sort of person who finds a restorative shot or three of whiskey in the early afternoon to be perfectly reasonable. Thanks, Deadwood! The next day I dragged my nails across a dragon's hide and now have resumed my self-defense stance, which is to say the next time someone gets that far into my space, I will head butt them. I mean figuratively. And until that happens, I will continue to call strangers in the UK and ask them to assign numeric values to things they probably don't care about, in exchange for which I will take piles of money that I can later turn into delicious sushi dinners in California this summer.

I am bit bogged by emotion that has not yet acquired the shape of words and this makes it hard to write, hard to speak. I have a lot of anger, a lot of real pain and a lot of anticipatory pain as well. Flowing around this is of course my well-paid voice reminding myself that I am happy, that I am fine, that I am lovable and loved, but so often these clear words seem less real than the inarticulate murmurs of doubt and hurt.

I find myself in the world nearly in love with some people because of their ability to combine intellect and kindness, how they sparkle. I feel words like brilliant and dazzling, and yet it is better, a rich warm light that doesn't hurt the eyes. And with other people how I must bite my tongue because it's not always a choice to be clueless and rude, and not every ignorance that upsets me is aimed at me. 

Sumer is icumen in. I bought a fantastic pair of pants a few months ago and it's finally warm enough to wear them, and now I am sitting on my hands to keep myself from ordering five more identical pairs. How many pairs of pants does a person who normally works in pajamas actually need, anyway? The amount of time I spend constructing a minimalist wardrobe in my head is clearly a reflection of the amount of time I've spent packing for long trips and the fact that I was never as sartorially happy as when I wore a uniform and didn't have to think about clothes at all. Three pairs of identical pants and six tops should do it, don't you think?

 

I was remembering the story of how my older sister died, her dark curls, wide smooth forehead, how she played with such seriousness that even on the swings you noticed her look of concentration, and one day she was there and then she was gone, and her dog, too, a black-and-white mutt so loyal, and I found her bones years later under the rose bushes and when I touched them I heard her voice telling me that she knows the truth that only the dead know. When I woke up it was 2 a.m. and I did not want to go back to sleep because it seemed like there was a message I needed to understand and I was afraid to forget but sleep won and already the dream is fading; tomorrow this will be all I remember.

For clarity, I have never had an older sister, nor a dog, nor rose bushes.

I've been hit by three cars in the 18 years I've lived here. Each time I have been in a crosswalk; each time I have been more than halfway across the street; each time the car has been turning across or into traffic and has not seen me because they were looking for other cars rather than pedestrians. Each time it has been less something I could have prevented. The people who think this is my fault or who blame the drivers divide pretty interestingly along who has seen somebody die and who has not. 

Unrelatedly, I did something to the ligaments of my foot and couldn't walk for a couple days but that seems to be getting better. Aging, man. I was prepared for wrinkles, gray hair, and gradual invisibility. I was not prepared for the increasing creakiness, the ache of morning, the sudden inexplicable betrayals. It occurs to me that right as I become invisible enough to rob a bank I will be unable to do so because my knees won't be up to it. 

What else? The guest room is done. By done I mean clean and with a bed and dresser. It is a small room, spartan but friendly. The walls are green and I will not stop thinking it is funny that I have a green room. It's the room where people go to get themselves ready before they come on the Anne Show, where I will ask about their recent projects and we'll be quite witty together on my comfy couch. You should come; I have some cards prepared with questions just for you. 

It occurs to me in my second year of self-employment that I am the kind of manager I do not like. Always with the criticism of tiny details, beating myself up for one small error or another, patting myself on the back periodically more because it feels like a necessary exercise in motivation than because I actually think I'm all that and a bagel. As a result I am alternately a sunny employee who focuses on the task (and the general pleasantness of the task) and a sullen, sabotaging layabout who takes too-long lunch breaks and sneers at the boss behind her back. I really care about what I do, and that helps. I do not have to deal with others often, with office politics and watercooler chatter, nepotism favoritism isms in general, and I appreciate that like nobody's business. Working alone and entirely under my own steam is really hard, though, and while I prefer not sleeping to missing deadlines I wish sometimes there was somebody other than me to go "hey nice work." I mean periodically the writers or translators thank me and it brings tears to my eyes every time, because I have created for most of them this idea that I am a perfect machine into which they send their lumps of coal and out of which I pump diamonds, just by virtue of being a ball of tense perfectionism. I mean I don't make myself human in their eyes and they don't either, and most of the time that's okay, but some of the time I forget that in this creation of myself, I am the boss who has to be impressed with me if I want somebody to say I did well. And really impressed, not Stuart Smalley smarming myself. I wish I would give myself the day off sometimes, and not the day off so I can clean but the day off to read a book or something. Maybe if I stop thinking all this nonsense and finish the last paper that's due this week, I'll take tomorrow off. I think I owe it to myself. 

I.

I nearly got scammed the other day on the phone. ME. I used to be so smart. I can only assume that some portion of "coughing my brains out" is to be taken literally. Yes! I'm still sick; two weeks and I can't stop this coffin. In a way it is a guilty sweetness to know that now I am keeping the neighbors awake with all my racket. But I would rather be well and listening to them than feeling like this, if we're being honest.

II

I got a nice letter from a man I've been editing for for two years now, who likes how "rigorous" I am, and mentions how odd it is that we haven't met. I do generally like the anonymity of my job, the fact that people don't know where I live or how old I am and some don't know I'm female. Like, hey, what a treat to be evaluated on the basis of really truly MY WORK. And with the exception of things like biographies, CVs, etc., to only be able to know the people I work for on the basis of THEIR WORK. I also got a couple e-mails on work I did earlier in the month to the effect that going over what I had done made them understand how to be better writers overall. I get this comment every year or so but it never fails to boost me for months at a time.

III

Third place at quiz night on Thursday, which was a little sad because we had disagreed about some answers and in a couple cases the wrong answer had prevailed. That's always frustrating. This was somewhat alleviated by learning that in fact I had gotten one answer (marked wrong) actually right, and while that half point totally didn't make a difference in the placing, it still felt pretty good.

IV

I'm at the point in the Pulitzer readings where pretty much all that's left is straight white men doing stories about straight white men. I am so ridiculously tired of Oh My Sad Impotence or Oh It Is Hard To Be a Drunk and a Sad Sack but Siiiiiiiigh Here I Am. And the next three in the list are Updike, Cheever, and Mailer. Oh dear heavens, that doesn't bode well. I may skip ahead to something more appetizing. It's my game, so I can make up the rules.

V

This advertisement for the Guardian is pretty much what I hate about where journalism is going. 

Here, let me take the nasty taste out of your mouth with some Christopher Walken telling the same story.

Jackhammers from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. outside the building next door. I don't know what they're doing it for, but it looks like a long project.

I went to a birthday party on Saturday and danced and danced and only stepped on a few feet with enough force to actually hurt anybody. Whoops. How the room swirled. I left at 2 a.m. with the music still blaring behind me for at least a half a block.

On Sunday the cold I had been fighting came and took up residence inside my sleepiness. I sneezed so hard I threw my back out. I highly recommend having a teenager at such times. Doubly so if they can cook. It is hard not to pretend to feel worse than I do, just to extend the loveliness of being tended to, treated like a fragile thing. I think he's on to me, though.

When I was little and I couldn't sleep I would match my breathing to my parents' down the hall. Not really snoring, but I could hear them, heavy and slow breaths through the night. And the first time I lived with someone other than my parents, I found myself also matching my breath to his, this breath lighter and faster than I was used to, but I learned. Putting myself to sleep by promising myself that everyone else was asleep; that if they thought it was safe it probably was. In, out, in, out. I did that any time I was with someone long enough to trust them; put my trust in their hands; put their breath in my lungs. When I was single I tried counting between breaths to prime numbers, sometimes even getting as far as 11 before realizing that I wasn't putting myself to sleep so much as suffocating, though that also works. Anyway last night I was counting on number five and I realized that I would probably not breathe with anybody again, and for a minute that seemed kind of sad, but five works pretty well and I breathed in for five and when I exhaled I blew that little puff of sadness away, because it IS safe enough to fall asleep, at least until the jackhammers start up again.