asocial INTJ tries to plan get together… lols

a self-serving recitation of self-deprecating vanity.

INTJ on the extreme end of introvert. check your myers-briggs six. i have to force anything even remotely extroverted. as a matter of fact, i wish that all customer service cockroaches and cashiers could just read my mind. it would save me a whole lot of verbal change.i don’t mind being the boisterous rabblerouser even when it means i seem over eager or desperate. truth is, i’m one of the most asocial, indifferent, socially apathetic people you will be privileged to never know. my take on social anythings is that if people gather to make idle chit chat and witty banter, i prefer to observe rather than partake. of course i get the irresistible urge to chime in and guffaw with others. and of course i occasionally revel in the energy of a good crowd, but it’s cuz i’m easily amused. i don’t need to feel and smell the hot breath of others to keep warm and sated. you will NEVER hear me refer to myself as a “social butterfly”.  it’s why i love being a little brown recluse on the fringe of the interwebs. it’s cold and distant and doesn’t feign connection. lovely cold hard detachment.

so what better way to be a nuisance than to try to coordinate others for a gathering. my obsessive organizational, compulsive coordination,  and irrational need to reach 100% completion on non-essential tasks make me prone to getting into a frenzy of activity when planning anything ever.

usually i get paid to do it. i’ve honed a start-up career out of a nesting instinct. i get paid to do what comes naturally to me. but on occasion i find myself involved in something outside work. rare but certain. it’s cool, i keep track of where people and things get off to. if someone in the department needs some obscure office tool or random scrap of data, i’m the go-to wench.  i’m the hub of this office for a reason. i collect and store information. it’s what i do to pay for my right to exist in this world so, of course, it’s a habit, too.  the talents come in handy and sometimes they result in kickass birthday parties for my kids and family. but sometimes things end in exasperated sighs from other apathetic folks who don’t even care to fake it for the sake of posterity.

but once in awhile, once in a very blue moon kind of while, i get that itch to be around other people. and as i’m filing through my mental catalogue of friends i keep at a distance, i realize i’d  rather continue the extensive affair that i began with my dvd player than take a shower and drive anywhere.  so then i turn to electronic means of keeping track of people. it saves me gas and cheekaches resulting from a persistent friendly smile (when you’re cheeks are as…prominent as mine, you don’t want to hold them up for extended periods of time). you think i’m kidding. please be so kind as to look at exhibit A: on none of my “social networking” sites will you see pictures of me with anyone but my own kids and occasionally, family members. please note the subtle absence of pictures of me anywhere but in my office or at the park. exhibit B: when’s the last time you actually saw me in public or, as a matter of fact, even heard my voice? i can all but guarantee you have not accidentally run into me frolicking on 6th street or lurking in the warehouse district in the past 4 or so years. exhibit C (which i can’t prove): 98% of my texts/phonecalls are to my bf.

yeah, i get it. you don’t care. me neither, truly. but what i’m talking about here is the unspoken RSVP request. a simple “can’t make it” would help my poor mind let it go. don’t think that i don’t call and/or email the superintendent’s office until i get a yes or no answer from his secretary for our department meetings. damn right. and he’s the 2008 austinite of the year. believe that.

if it’s a bust, then i can at least say i tried. if you’re asocial, hit me up (electronically, of course) and let’s not hang out sometime.

epic – one more entry left unfinished.

aelita 1 Tied and Tickled Trio

he came to an ocean, his soul in his hand

alone and turned in, to make his last stand

he stood on a rock and yelled to the wind

i don’t know how to live, i only do what i can

the wind screeched in kind, its protest of will

he threw back his head and heaved dry and shrill

the paean carried off on the crests of the waves

and he dove for the rocks and braced for the chill

falling through mist and the damp of the sea

he opened his arms to sound his decree

to a diving gull plunging down for a kill

this is my will and as i will, it will be

passage was offered, but he chose to swim

sodden with guilt, the sage rushes in

again as before, ventured off filled with fear

glistening wet with the thickness of sin

soaked through with blame self-imposed and contained

a great hole in his hand, his innocence stained

murky clay eyes; fragile, torn paper skin

weary with all his past joys abstained

the surface drew near, both clear and dark

a peace filled his chest and he aimed for his mark

there below waits his truth and his reason

guised as a game, an adventure, a lark

the waters of timeless appeal splashed all around

fruition, delight, and rapture profound

he consumed, voracious infant at breast

chaos ensued but he heard just one sound

calliope’s aria, streaming through hadal and brine

his Nemesis, his antithesis, exoneration divine

inverse, though perverse, extends her pale hand

this fruit, suspended from the tip of an ill-fated line

out of focus. completely.

i didn’t sleep much last night, or rather, this morning. i watched movies to pass the hours but found myself wide awake at 3:30 in the morning, dreading the 6:30 alarm. even though the tv was at a moderate volume, my children were sleeping soundly as children do when mother is near. for a time, i watched my son’s even breathing and occasional squirming to find a comfortable spot. and i chuckled softly when my daughter laughed gently in her sleep. hopefully her pleasant dreams don’t elude her when she’s my age.

i finally started to sink into a restless half-sleep near 4 am. behind my closed eyes, i was drifting in the lingering residue of eva luna, a book i’ve read more times than i can recall, always “forgetting” the plot and ending so that each revisit will surprise, appall, and engage me.

wakeful nightdreaming of the myriad familiar characters, and especially melesio, whose lives are floating in those pages. i get lost in stories and when i close my books, think of restless beings trapped in the confines of pages and covers who are only permitted to exist through my eyes and mind when open. their phrases become my own and their mannerisms find their way into my comportment.

i started my morning with a visit to a gas station where a very tall, very effeminate cashier with the name tag “Gem” gave me unnecessary attitude when i asked where the soup-at-hands were. i felt the need to disarm him right away with a cheerful response. to meet each new person everyday with immediate defenses must be exhausting for Gem. he immediately reminded me of my favorite character in eva luna, that tortured character who by day is one person and by night, herself. and in my sleep deprived delirium, entertained fanciful notions of the glamorous (in the deceptive sense of the word) and tortured life a being of such duality must live. a soul who finds itself in a vessel not befitting its intrinsic need for a comfortable physical home.

differences between consciousness and sleep, story and life, truth and fiction, all take flight at once.

and i’m lectured on the banes of insomnia. i would like to slap whoever’s idea it was to make the days start early. what’s the point of the discoveries of fire and electricity if we have to be up during the day? am i rubbing humanity’s fur the wrong way because i’m nocturnal? is it unnatural that my body has never been able to sway to the rhythm of day since i was a teenager? i’ve been reading Insomniac (Gayle Greene) and she’s right, insomnia is of almost no interest to those without it, but to those who bear it, it’s of grave importance. clearly, insomniacs are able to hold jobs, produce at work, function at home, but it takes a most careful and constant negotiation with our own bodies and minds to maintain stasis.

utz

i’m such a sissy girl.  i don’t think anyone really knows how soft i am. i’m about as tough as soft butter. sometimes i’m just minding my own business and a piano melody from my pandora station will make me just melt into a puddle of oxytocin.

i think i listen to emotive music to make myself feel. i’m usually over-analytical and cold in my approach to matters of heart, but there was probably a subconscious need to ignore my cerebrum when i created my favorite pandora station, so aptly titled ‘Mcluv-Sick’. it’s comprised of almost every song that has given me the utz to cuddle up under someone’s arm and fall asleep. songs from childhood up until this year. AND OF COURSE SOME OF THEM ARE CHEESY AND PLAYED OUT. yet the object of longing has changed over time and concenters on my heartstrings like the pressure of a dagger on its point of entry.

i daydream and skip merrily along those trails of sentiment that i usually keep suppressed, arm in arm with my own silliness. if you ever catch me with a goofy smile on my face when there seems to be no external cause for amusement, i’m probably being sentimental. it’s a good time to ask for a loan.

p=mv

i spent the whole night dreaming. instinctively, i know this. but the only image i remember is a very tall, very bare tree falling over and crushing through two stories of apartment homes. the sound of the creaking, popping wood as it gave way to its own tremendous weight is still replaying in my mind this morning. and the scattered feelings of panic and disorder from those in the vicinity linger as well.

all i know is that, in my lucid dreams, just as in my lucid wakefulness, i get my ass movin’. i looked at the other adult woman i was with, thought ‘to hell with you if you want to stay and wait to see what happens.’ swooped up my three year old son to my hip, snatched my daughter’s hand and hauled ass to a safe viewing distance.

and then my phone alarm went off, shrill and aggravating. when i open it up, it says “wake up you stupid, naive idiot” because that’s the kind of pep talk i give myself each weekday morning. it may seem like i’m being hard on myself, and i am.  i just mean to remind myself that anything stupid done yesterday has a chance to be resolved and redeemed today, so get your sluggish ass rolling, moron. and at 6:31 a.m., a text message from my gallant lothario, bidding me good morrow and addressing me by one of my pet names made me smile sleepily and hit snooze.

now here i am at my desk having great philosophical thoughts about my dreams and existence while i try to run an ever-interrupted office routine. but i keep reminding myself “you have the same number of hours in your day that the most influential and powerful people have in theirs. do not despair.” paaaayyy-tience, he would say.

echo boom this

sometimes i am speechless with disgust at my generation, the generation that preceded mine, and the one that follows. we are pampered, so sated and pacified by our material comforts that we fester in our own lush shells. domesticated pigs greedily feeding on our own crap.

our flight from our given places on simmer. what are our obligations when the social contract is no longer honored in spirit?

what i see disappoints me. i include myself in my assessment. i am fortunate to possess comforts that my predecessors did not and my contemporaries in other countries do not. yes. i am fat, lazy, and apathetic. the zeitgeist hovers just above the surface of our awareness, but never quite settles. it’s difficult to sense and synchronicity is stunted.

we all seem to be suffering from something like synaptal fatigue, psychic numbing. i call it sissified bullshit. i call it whiny baby learned helplessness. i call it spoiled-ass generation XYZmyfoot-the-grownups-willdealwithit crap. even a whipped dog or beaten child will eventually lash out. people condition themselves to ignore. cleave it out, wuss.

all this disgust in me for inaction but i recognize we possess a potential as yet untapped…quiet militancy. respectfully belligerent. weapons of the weak. willfully suppressed, but it’s there.

your fat, lazy, apathetic ass has too many rainbows and ice cream cones to focus on. i don’t mean to say that each doesn’t have his own sorrows. but the truly downtrodden have a greater capacity for joy and a less cynical sense of the sacred. they are not so padded by the comforts of the flesh as to reject the the eternal. your doubt and over-analysis of the meaning of life mean precisely dick.

the oppressed are women. the oppressed are men. the oppressed are children. the oppressed are the elderly. the oppressed are the white. the oppressed are the non-white. the oppressed are those aware of their opression and those who are oblivious. they are the starving and the overfed.

raise your sons as you raise your daughters. to feel and fear and love. raise your daughters as you raise your sons. to fight and move and shout.

i sporadically bring up these topics with peers. i rarely have the opportunity to breech the topic of the big picture and how one’s thread fits into the tapestry. i’m sick of talking about my job and my money. i don’t know where to start. where the fuck is everyone else? i feel like i showed up at a meeting in the wrong office.