I sanded the front landing in a respirator and safety glasses, swept the walls once, hosed myself off (my eyelashes were white), puttered about for a while while more dust settled, swept the walls again without the respirator or glasses, hosed myself off (my nosehairs were white), read, then damp-mopped the surfaces, then scrubbed them with TSP-substitute.
Tomorrow morning, the first coat of primer.
Also, in my brilliance, I painted the outside of the watercloset door in semi-gloss and the inside in flat (not even eggshell) white. When I do the trim in the landing I'll gloss the door. Define it, you know. I did razor the window clean. And we replaced the toilet, seating the new one much more thoroughly so it doesn't wobble. I hope I never have to replace another toilet. The wax seal between toilet and waste pipe gets extremely nasty over time. The first layers come off on the scraper like fresh earwax, pliable and not overly gross, but the inner ones are like the big chunks of dried earwax that that mouthbreather in third grade always had, that he could make a Bernie Botts' Every Flavor Bean out of.
But it's done for this time, as of Tuesday night, and the current project is not repellent at all, and I am showered and shampooed and cuddled in fleece and making dinner and probably will finish She Is Me tonight.
Yii. I have Sinéad O'Connor in my head because I am so aware of the difference in my outlook today. I have these hiccups of blee that I love, that I remember being my usual state of being, that haven't been for a long time.
So yesterday my psychiatrist and I (that would be one of the things I've been not 'fessing about, and the difference in my mood is why I'm 'fessing now) talked about why I'm not as comfortable socially as I once was. I have become, shockingly, an introvert, in fact if not by nature.
I told her three incidents from the class I took at Metro.
The first I told when it happened: that I mistook a classmate I had already thought looked like Sabrina for Sabrina. I think I wanted to tell her (Shrink) that I did see a potential friend there but already didn't know how to court the prefriend when that incident nixed (in my mind if not in fact) any chance of that happening.
The second happened the first day of class and set the tone for the remainder. The professor gave a spiel about how far feminism still has to go and had some clippings from recent papers to illustrate her point. One was Mr. Someone saying that sometimes it really is okay to hit your wife. Most of the class seemed to know who the speaker was, and his apparent celebrity meant that people would look up to and emulate him. I had no idea who the name was, so I raised my hand and asked, "Who is Shannon Sharpe?" He is a Denver Bronco football player, and my not knowing that, and probably quite obviously not caring about knowing it, that began (many of) my classmates' dislike of me. Shrink and I have spoken about cognitive distortions, such as my limited ability to react appropriately because I'm so busy being insecrure and overinterpreting (speaking of Cathleen Schine, "so literal-minded and fanciful at the same time… a black hole, sucking up the world around me to metaphorize it out of all recognizability") and however much that is true (very), I damn well didn't mistake or exaggerate the hostility of particularly three of them.
Once feeling brassy and superior, as we walked into the classroom, I asked one of the three whose murmurings whenever I raised my hand were the loudest, what that button on her backpack meant (MET with a slash through it--something about how the nickname for Metropolitan State College of Denver should not be Met). From my usual front right seat, I easily saw her in the opposite corner telling her companions why she spoke to me at all, and if she'd known it was me addressing her from behind as we entered the room single-file, she would have--here she jabbed backward with her elbow. Not just dislike: hostility. Whatever. For good or ill, I felt superior to them and their dislike of me amused rather than distressed me. Whereas, another time that semester in my commute home, I was so distraught when a random other bus passenger told me off, in quite foul language, when I asked him please not to stand on my foot, that at my transfer point I called Haitch asking her to come get me rather than spend another instant on public conveyance.
The third incident--well, it's just a good story when I was already talking about the class, so I didn't resist it, even though it has nothing to do with How I React When People Like or Dislike me--happened one Monday evening after I had spent the weekend in Aspen with CLH, who had flown in for a friend's wedding, and not done the assigned reading. In class, the first several people the professor called on to comment on the reading could not answer--no one else had done the reading either--so she systematically called on everyone, about the readings page by page. Because she naïvely used alphabetical order, it was easy to gauge what reading she would ask about by the time she reached H, so I nonchalantly skimmed it so that I could answer. An easy trick that continued not to enamour my classmates of me.
Shrink observed that all of these stories are about How Others Perceive Me. Yeah, pretty much. I like to be perceived well, and probably haven't enough inner resources to keep my esteem high when I don't get feedback. Maybe.
Speaking of feedback.
Last Saturday morning, I woke from an amusing if startling lascivious dream. I dreamt that RDC had loaned me out to JGW, and it was extremely erotic if not lewd, and amusing because JGW, while a great fellow, is no one I have ever found compellingly attractive. But RDC had been gone for over a week and JGW was due in a week so that explained that. Later that day, JGW called to report when his flight was due, and he asked me if I had a bed all warmed up for him and whether I had one of my hugs ready for him. As I told Nisou when we talked later, it sounded especially flirtatious to me.
Yesterday JGW arrived, and I returned from being shrunken in a contemplative mood that quickly dissipated into merriment. The three of us went to the Cherry Cricket for the best burger in Denver--well, three of them--and conversation. Flirting, I remarked that I cut my hair and mocked offense that he hadn't noticed. He said, "Well, your hair was never your most outstanding feature," and though I knew--I knew--he wasn't insulting my hair, he saw he'd have to explain himself. He said, "I'm probably going to embarrass myself here..." and continued to exonerate himself by speaking of the total package (I had anticipated my laugh or smile or eyes) and saying the hair was just what topped it off. I evened out the embarrassment by confessing the lascivious dream.
What am I getting at here (besides wanting to commemorate and publicize an extravagant compliment)? That if someone I did not trust as much as I do JGW had said something that sounded that much like an insult, no amount of follow-through explanation on their part, no matter how much I intellectually knew they meant something positive, could assuage my hurt. I don't mean only flirtatious comments either.
I mean that it's much easier for me to deal with people when I already have some foundation with them. Last month in Boston we played Pictionary and I was teamed with my sister's friend. My sister and cousin trounced us, but Friend and I got some brilliant ones ourselves (she guessed my "drench," which is extremely difficult to draw). I felt an immediate connection with Friend not because of anything in her personality but because of our tie through my sister.
I suppose that's universal, that it's easier to form a tie with someone when the initial boundary has been breached already, but I'm confronting the fact that I didn't use to mind that boundary, the fact of it, its presence. I used to be able, or to want, to bridge it. Now I don't bother, don't bother to make the effort.
I miss not having the social circle here that I had in school, but it's not moving that deprived me of it (though knowing no one here except RDC's schoolmates whom I was anxious not to alienate didn't help). It's the confidence I lost during My Bad Year, when I leaned way too much on way too many people, lacking discretion and restraint and even what slight tact I had cobbled together up to then.
Since then, I have been so anxious not to commit the same offenses that in the limited new social environments I find myself in, I am on my Best Behavior, and that's not fun, either for me or the society. Having to Watch myself all the time makes me anxious that I will Fail, and it's been easier to avoid the failing by not making the effort.
Which is pretty much the theme of my life. My epitaph will be "Change Is Bad" and "Crippled by Nostalgia," and a reason I am crippled by nostalgia is that Back Then, all this Having Friends nonsense was easy.
Shrink gave me a list of irrational thoughts that someone invented or compiled, and while I don't know what credence to lend the list (since I know nothing of its author), I do know I indulge in about 80% of the thought patterns listed.
I was kinda thinking, "Oh great, another thing to beat myself up about. Ain't I better off not knowing I am failing in these additional several ways?"
Cognitive distortions indeed.
I'm so anxious about people that recently at work when I, for a rarity, had to spend the day on the phone, I was getting sweaty and nervous at the prospect of each perfectly reasonable, professionally founded, call.
I know that Change Is Bad is a major reason I haven't attempted to find a more challenging, probably better paying, higher status job--although, as I told JGW this morning, I work less than 40 hours a week and get four weeks of vacation a year and have zero stress (semiannual evaluations and occasional phone calls aside) and that's worth the lower pay and status. The lack of challenge is probably no good for my mind or esteem, of course.
Do I have a thesis here? Probably not.
Anyway. I tapped a few notes this morning, when I was feeling bouncy and like my old Tigger self; now it's after eight and I ache from scrubbing the walls and being vibrated by the sander (that sounds not just painful but possibly maimful, doesn't it?) and I should see if I have a thesis yet.
Nah.
While at the Cricket JGW told his favorite lisa-goes-skiing story: RDC, he, and I at Ski Sundown. JGW remembered that I had been skiing fine for several runs but then choked on an easy green (and in Connecticut, the greens are really easy) and skied through a group beginner-skier lesson, and got yelled at by the instructor for my troubles while JGW and RDC both tried to excuse me and I shamefully apologized. RDC told EJB's favorite lisa-goes-skiing story: at Keystone, EJB was giving me a lesson on a blue run. I fell. I did not stop. Once at Whiteface in New York I fell and could not stop myself--and a perfect stranger dashed down in front of me as a brake. Thank you, whoever you were. I had yard-saled and, if he hadn't stopped me, would have had to trek back upslope to retrieve ski and ski and pole and pole. This time, at Keystone, my skies stayed on my feet, and I saw EJB grab my poles, so I continued falling with impunity. Basically I sledded down the slope, several hundred feet, on my front. As I now told JGW, I was getting down the slope and my feet didn't hurt, so skiing-wise I counted myself ahead of the game. Sledding's always more fun than skiing.
I referred to the Sundown incident as JGW's favorite lisa-story and he said no, it was his favorite lisa-skiing story but that his favorite lisa-story overall had to be the naked hottubbing at the wedding. I think it amused EJB and JGW so much because they had previously though RDC was marrying a prude, since I don't drink. Sometime during the afternoon, when most people were out front playing volleyball or croquet, I walked about with a bag disposing of plates and cups. Around back, I found APB and EJB talking about how possibly to enclose the deck, EJB in the hottub observing the Charenton stricture against bathing suits. That stricture was fine when it was just the two of them, but he was extremely startled when I skinned down and joined him. Last night in the Cricket, I told JGW I didn't remember him around the tub, and he said, "Believe me, I walked by" (presumably after EJB left and several other women joined me).
After the Cherry Cricket we met SPM and Begonia. Begonia's been going to this bar forever and the owner stood us a round of drinks and then a round of the same shots Begonia had had before we arrived. Five shots. Five people at the table. One of those people being me.
Moments later, RDC called my sister to tell her that I had had my first shot--an Alabama slammer, or something, Southern Comfort and something that tasted like Pez or presweetened Kool-Aid. Soon after that I left, having had enough smoke for the evening and leaving the men to reminisce about the Grateful Dead, to pass out from my imbibing, as RDC said.
De-smoked, I settled in to "Mary of Scotland" and TUS-chat. Between amiable, familiar friends in person and a common airing of grievances on the board, I did feel quite chatty, and some of my favorite Suspects were there. I chatted! I never chat.
So anyway, this morning I woke up nearly giddy. I am not still: that would make me manic. But I am happy, and happy to be so.