betrayal

if one were to use something i've shared with one out of trust

(for example, something one might read here)

against me,

one would establish oneself as very untrustworthy indeed.

one is not invited back.

unfortunately, this blog must now end.

yeah. it was that bad.

sorry all.

[fades into background]

oh and by the way

who needs gangnam style when we have tunak tunak tun?

just saying.

death of a friendship

i wonder if insomnia breeds self-righteousness.  or perhaps it's just the self-righteous who experience a worsening of their attitudes when they can't sleep.

ahem. hi. cb here.

it's been a good time. i am satisfactorily married. my job is satisfactory, and i have two awesomely satisfactory dogs. i live in a satisfactory house in a satisfactory city.

satis, sated, enough.  factory, something that makes.

so why the dramatic post title?

i'm trying to be a very good person in the real world.  i have to work out some badness in the blogosphere.  that's why.

so i am killing this friendship.  i hope it's the right thing to do.

she's never been there for me, really.  "i love you dearly," she said, but i have to wonder, "how?"

how is that possible?  she never thinks of me, never considers me, never contacts me.  assumes that i follow her every move, every facebook status, every blog post.  oh, except for the "secret blog" which she thinks i don't know about, but she mentioned to me. mentioned to me but didn't share with me, a so-called "best friend".

no. best friend? no.  in fact, i would argue that she has no real best friend. not even in her husband. she is too caught up in herself to be able to engage in a relationship that is outside her own head, a relationship that involves loving someone and putting someone's interests and needs as a priority.  instaed, her love affair is with

you.

what?

that's right. with you, oh grand internet audience.  she lives for you and your approval. over the years i have watched her preen herself in her little swan costume as she dances on this virtual stage for this imaginary audience.  not that she hasn't got an audience. no, she is quite popular with blog-readers and facebookers. she practically has an international fan club.  they fawn over her, lavishing her with oodles of praise and gifts. yes, even gifts!  and yet, ahem...

 

IT'S NOT REAL.  HELLO?!

so what?  if i claim to be a "real friend", why would i abandon the friendship? wouldn't a real friend try to work it out?

i have. for years. over a decade.  and over the years i have grown. i have learned so much about love, and responsibility, and putting others' needs before mine.  i'm not great at it, and have fallen and scraped my knees along the way. it's been arduous and tortuous, but it's been a life-changing, educational journey that has left me a better person.  i've grown.

and she hasn't.  in fact, she's become dysfunctional, regressing into childish behavior.  rude and bizarre, in real life she is quite off-putting to those who meet her.  a few minutes into a conversation in any direction reveal deep-rooted selfishness and an inability to interact with others because she is incapable of caring about anything that isn't her or hers.  people meeting her ask me things like, "what's with her?" and "is she okay?" no, no she's not.

then they ask me why i am friends with her. and now i have to say, i don't know.

she used to be fun.  she used to be kinda sweet, but thinking back, she's never been one to bring much to the relationship except fun.  she was fun. and interested and talented in things my other friends weren't as interested and talented in. so by being with her and around her i got to have fun, and to revel in things i couldn't with others.

now she is consumed by those things. things. things over people. ideas over relationships.

her ideas are superior to yours. she will let you know. and she will be rude and insulting about it.

she needs help. she needs counseling. she needs a friend to point this out. why not me?

i suppose one could wonder if i'm too much of a coward to say anything. you know, i've explored that, and i don't think it's the case. i don't say anything because she couldn't handle it, nor would she believe it coming from me.

i'm not afraid to say it. i'm afraid of destroying her by saying it. because it would have very ill effects on her fragile psyche.

hence the blog post. cowardice? maybe. but practical and non-hurtful.

because she doesn't read my blog.

the blog post. so passive. so meaningless. so therapeutic for me, so

selfish of me.

yes, i confess that i know it's selfish of me. it's for me that i end the relationship. i tire of having my feelings hurt, of being abandoned in times of need, and of being insulted. i refuse to watch my other loved ones be insulted by her.  i can't keep giving, or i'll be left empty, as she never reciprocates. her neediness is a black hole.  one can't build both sides of a bridge. etc.

so i am selfishly ending the relationship to put an end to the negative things i experience. i have to be healthy and happy. honestly, wasn't it a selfish thing for me to have started the relationship in the first place, because it was based primarily on fun? so what's wrong with ending it?

interestingly, she has no idea. she has absolutely no idea how i feel, or even that we're not friends anymore. because she hasn't thought about me. she hasn't noticed i'm gone.

and that, to me, is justification enough.

justify.

now back to our regularly scheduled good behavior.
 

Magic shell

I refuse to be hurt or insulted.

 

I am tough now.  I didn't mean to get this way; it just happened.

 

See this incredible new microfiber cleaning cloth?

I use it to wipe your insults off of my shell.  My tough outer shell.

 

Look at my shell.  It is so shiny you can see yourself in it.  Your nasty words harden on its surface and make it thicker.  The spit flying from your mouth as you shout only makes it shinier. 

 

So go on your way.  I'll keep trudging along mine.

 

Ping!

supercrank

i win, i win, I WIN DANGIT!!!!!!

 

fighting the good fight

 

the mere act of fighting and being a fighter is a victory in and of itself

 

do not go gentle into that good night

 

rage, rage against the dying of the light

 

and now

 

i am so tired.

 

so very tired.

 

but every morning-- be assured-- something will

 

crank

 

me

 

up

otherly significant

i come and go like a birthday
meaningful but quickly forgotten
complete with cake and ice cream and singing and self-importance

you will remember me!
when i tell you to

so in the end, i am unavoidable
inevitable
and in the end

i win

it's official

it happens in 18 minutes.

it's here, that day i learned about years ago.  the day, the time-- it earns me a label.  it changes the prognosis of my future.

it's here.  i haven't had time to dread it.  i've made a couple jokes about it here and there, in public.  but inside i feel nothing about it.  i feel nothing.  nothing except the vague feeling that i am supposed to feel something.

i can only wonder if everything will be okay.

one knows that even if it isn't okay, one goes on.

i will beat you to it.

i love you, friends.

empty threats

google wha?

hello

my puppy dog and i say hi.

it's hot where we are. we're just hanging out, doing our thing.

how is it where you are? what are you up to?

wounded

owwww

and now

i feel so ugly.

what happens on facebook when you die?

i mean no disrepect with the question. it's just that illness and death have touched those around me, and to my surprise, eulogizing on facebook seems to be what people do now.

is that what we do now?

it makes me think. it makes me cry. it raises questions.

...

they are trite questions. those are not worth discussing here.

it is odd to read facebook (i'm not on it much) and find such heartfelt expressions of love, grief, and tribute pasted up amidst the scads of more mundane updates (i am doing this, i am going there, i have kids and here is a picture, i am tired, i am at work, i like sleep, i like food, i like vacation, i am playing an online game).

(that was my impression of a facebook page. did you like it?)

it feels as though something is out of place-- or is it simply that those of us who like to categorize things feel the urge to keep the profound and the banal from touching each other on our dinner plates? or perhaps it is those of us who suffer from a certain brand of self-importance undervalue the everyday events that some deem facebook-worthy?

for the past three weeks i have been saying it out loud. "life is too short to stay in situations that make you deeply unhappy."

(some may accuse me of being deeply unhappy despite any situation. i am incapable of addressing that accusation.)

i don't know what will happen on facebook when i die. probably nothing. that is okay by me.

i don't want my loved ones to do stuff on facebook. but that is neither here nor there.

right now i just want them to know i love them. RIGHT NOW.

DO YOU HEAR ME, ALL OF YOU?

trapped

all my life i have been attracted to people who revel in the simplest of life's pleasures. they're not average or normal, and i love them that way. they have helped keep me from getting swept away by my own seriousness, and they have been my best friends over time.

but now? here, things are quiet. and grey.

stupid facebook. and stupid flickr. and myspace. and blogs. and all those things that remind me of all the beauty and all the good
of all the vibrant, incredible things out there
and of the people i love enjoying them

trapped in my hospital room,
i sometimes forget that life is so much better than this,
but really, sometimes, it's better that way
because when i remember
i cry.

new friends

meet gunther and chan.

gunther


chan

prepositions

left out, chewed out, burned out, guilted out, bummed out,

upset, put upon

fed up

mourn with me

for it would appear that i have joined the masses.



yet take solace, for crocs remain to me the greatest of abominations.

new camera

heh, heh heh.

the company one keeps

i find all the doctors quite boring.

this, in addition to the daily grind, has worn me down to a little nugget of banality. i sit here jiggling meaninglessly, like a small grey lump of oatmeal that has slid from the stubbly chin of a local vagrant and landed ever so unfortunately onto a cold sidewalk. gross.

it's vaguely frightening, this threat of becoming as boring as most of my married friends. but i'm too bored to care.

and no, sorry my current single friends, no amount of alcohol makes things any more interesting.

i shan't waste more blog space on this. just wanted to tell you where i've been. i've been here. with nothing to report.

maybe i'll start writing about the ennui.

oh, wait. i just did.

candid pic

spongebob has seen better days.

hi friends

some of you guys are my fibre arts friends.

if so, then join Ravelry with me! (i'm using a different pseudonym but lemme know if you join and i'll tell you what it is)

okay that's my plug.

answer

the answer to last week's "name that cartoon" post:



for some reason my brothers and i had this one on tape, and we watched it time and again as children. i'd nearly forgotten about it. it inspires rather fond feelings as i watch it and each new scene is so familiar to me, right down to the way that the chicken clucks and the way donald despondently laments, "my apples!"

one thing i will confess: i never did understand what they were saying in the apple core bit. now that i know, i still don't get it. baltimore?

bathroom adventures

admittedly, i'm stooping to yet another level of blog stories.

yes, sometimes i have to go to the bathroom at the hospital. come on, we're only human.

evidently two of the hospital bathrooms are back-to-back, and the plumbing, therefore, is likewise back-to-back. why would i know this? because today, being in one of those bathrooms, doing what one does when one is in such a room, i heard someone enter the adjoining bathroom behind me. i heard that door lock. and then suddenly, thump! i felt my toilet seat go upward as someone else plopped his/her posterior onto the toilet seat behind me, on the other side of the wall.

i'm sorry, but i just don't want that much interaction with other people when i'm going about my business. a toilet teeter-totter? or would it be a potty-totter? or a pee-pee-see-saw?

also, last night while getting into the shower i slipped and hurt my knee on the edge of the tub. at least i didn't fall, but i am starting to not trust these bathroom places. perhaps i should never enter a bathroom again?

name that cartoon

"apple core."

"baltimore."

"who's your friend?"

"ME."

SMACK!

owie

i hurt myself by coughing and sneezing.

for the past week or so i have had chest pain with each cough, sneeze, sniff, and deep breath (i gots allergies). i thought i was getting better, but today while crossing the street i sneezed. suddenly i was hurting a lot worse— with breathing in and breathing out, with each step, with every word i spoke.

i could take something for the pain. sure. but the best medicine for it is something i've been taking for fairly frequently for headaches. what if it becomes too much medicine? i could get ulcers. or kidney disease! what if i...

i am certain i have simply pulled a chest wall muscle. of course, it has been so long now (and the pain is getting worse) that i have to entertain another diganosis: a broken rib.

why on earth would i have broken a rib? coughing and sneezing? sure. little osteoporotic old people do it. so it's possible. so now do i have osteoporosis? am i malnourished?

this has been an exercise to illustrate that sometimes knowing too much makes for nothing but a big heap of trivia.

HA!

owie. it hurts to laugh.

errors of omission

are hurtful as well.

too little, too late.

i was not prepared to go softly into that good night,

but it would appear that the human heart has only room for so much.

rage, rage against the dying of the light

(such a bad habit of mine)

yet falling on silent ears and busy minds

my tears and words would simply be without worth.

goodbye. i will try to miss you only for a little while

and perhaps exhibit the grace

and do you the favor

of keeping quiet

blogstipated

but you already noticed that.

solution

from all the way across the long, highly-polished board room table the surgeon's gaze intensified, and my colleague's eyes widened as she stuttered.

i had been on call with this particular junior fellow, who was particularly sweet and particularly soft-spoken. i liked her a lot, and didn't want her to feel stressed out as she was bearing the brunt of an especially rough set of questioning. this last question was unusually tricky, and had that "read my mind, read my mind, guess what i'm thinking" quality to it.

my junior colleague did not know the answer to this one. i, having no other outlet for my maternal instinct, always desperately want to help the juniors, to protect and shelter them from potential defeat, humiliation, or surgeonwrath. my mind churned with potential answers, none of them the one he wanted-- i did not know the answer either.

fortunately, my colleague did well to reply to the question as best she could, and the answer ended up being a tricky little philosophical answer designed to open up further discussion- nothing we'd been taught before. no defeat, no humiliation.

after the conference i approached the poor lamb. "great job in conference this morning. it's so hard to be put on the spot like that, especially after working so hard through the night and not sleeping. i hope you feel okay about it."

"oh, yes. i'm fine. but thanks."

"seriously, [c]. i am sorry about that last question. i really, really wanted to step up on that one and take the hit for you, but i didn't know how. i was just sitting there, desperately trying to think of someway to divert his attention away from you, and i didn't know what to do."

"well," said my delicate, soft-spoken friend without missing a beat, "you could have farted."

i would never have thought of that solution. my respect for her problem-solving skills grew immensely.

i am so proud.

friendships

if you have a friend who lives in a place that may have just suffered a huge natural disaster,

contact them and make sure they are okay.

otherwise, how will you know if you still have a friend?

and maybe, just maybe if you didn't,

you don't.

yes, fortunately, all my friends and loved ones who live there are okay.

hi friends

i miss you.

all of you.

a lot.

i have been

abused in the ICU.

that is where i have been.

today

it's cousin ray's birthday.
hope he's having a happy one.