Assorted thoughts
"Margaret!" the other voice on the phone said. I could tell she was surprised to get a hold of me, instead of the modem caused busy signal. "Do you wanna play golf tonight?" Golf! I scarfed the rest of my pizza. "Well... can we play Dinosaur Mini Golf?" I said. Golf is one thing, Mini Golf is an entire other thing, and Dinosaur Mini Golf is on a plane of it's own.
It's funny how I can live on my own planet sometimes and it's even funnier how it can not be an affront to the people I'm with. Before we crossed the river to the Prehistoric Mini Golf course, we stopped at the library to see if Becca the Librarian wanted to come with us.
She looked like she always looks when we show up at the Library - mildly pleased to see us, mildly tired out. I listened to my friends wrangle out plans for the night as I stalked the bookshelf. "... that junior ... " "Are you sure?" "... I haven't seen him... " They have Fahrenheit 451 the movie, but not the book, I don't think I like Ray Bradbury anyway, do I really wanna read a book called "Being Dead"? Henry James, I don't think so "What about your boyfriend?" "He always says he's tired, don't believe him."
"Becca," I said faintly to the books. "Becca?" I said a little louder. "Margaret's bleating," I heard Becca say. "She sounds like a lost lamb." I did indeed, though I hadn't noticed. Becca fished out a book from the bottom shelf and said that the ending was very "Uhnnnn" and she clasped a hand to her cheek. I stacked my four books and checked them out, five minutes prior to the library's closing time. I plunked a dime of overdue fees into the librarian's palm.
On the drive to the Dinosaur Mini Golf, I held the dust jackets of the books I checked out up to the light from street lamps and tried to read. I was concentrating on calibrating the number of pages, trying to gauge which of the four I should start into first, wondering which I would like and which I wouldn't bother even opening. Part of me, though, was listening to my friend prattle on - about Mini Golf, AP tests, adventures at work. And I would sometimes, very absent mindedly, interrupt her with short bursts of laughter, and then would return to the fiction crowding my lap.
One of my favorite traits about myself is my complete and utter delayed reaction to most everything. I love this about me, but I certainly realize that it can make talking to me quite disconcerting. In the middle of a conversation about the state of the plaster dinosaurs at Mini Golf, I can burst out with something I've been thinking about for three months. I didn't do that while we were playing Mini Golf, I mostly just cursed the golf ball, but if I did, it would have been very typical of me.
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Going to bed used to be a very careful ritual. I was terrified about sleeping poorly. Dead giveaway that there was something wrong with me - it's always listed first on the list of symptoms of depression. I would stay up till four for a few weeks. I would crash and sleep the clock around. I went to sleep early in order to spite holidays. And when I looked at myself, and my complete lack of a regular sleeping pattern, I went "Oh no" and invented rituals for sleeping.
I would take baths, and drink chamomile tea. I would fold the bedcovers very neatly around me, as though that would quiet my anxious squirming. I would lie very still and watch the street lamp outside my bedroom window. Sometimes it would shut off during the night, and I would say to myself "Fall asleep! Fall asleep now, while it's pitch colored outside and the snow is falling, fall asleep! Fall asleep quick, before the street lamp comes back on." And it helped, the rituals helped. They brought back some order, that I craved, that I wanted so desperately when everything felt absolutely beyond me.
And that is gone now. My fitted sheet has been tugging off my mattress, and I've made no attempt to fix it. I haven't touched my box of tea in months. I developed an intense distaste for baths. The water which had seemed so soothing, and so important to me, now felt uncomfortable and unpleasant. I roll into bed at one thirty, and sleep until I'm late for work.
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It started raining during the Mini Golf. I shot a 70, my friend shot a 48. My jeans made my legs feel humid, and I lost my turquoise golf ball half way through. As we were climbing down one of the Prehistoric Pathways, I thought about the different ways I am by myself. Sometimes I am simply by myself. I have the house to myself. I feel ambivalence about this - and sometimes it is necessary to be alone, sometimes being alone is forced on me. Sometimes I am by myself in a large group of people, and I feel miserably uncomfortable.
But there are times when I am by myself, but with a couple other people that I generally like. It is a very genial and pleasant way to be alone. It's sort of like eating smooth hard caramels. You hardly notice how nice they taste, they're just sort of unconsciously pleasant. I laugh with my delayed reaction to the things my friends say, I listen to them with part of my brain, but most of me is alone. And deeply happy.
2000-07-22, Assorted thoughts
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