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To link to this blog from blog posts/comments, use [blog Noisy_Introvert], from anywhere else use http://personals.girlfriendsmag.com/blog/Noisy_Introvert, and to read it remotely use the  feed.
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| The Dawg's not-experienced near-death experience |
Sep 8, 2008 11:25 am
Mood: 22, 15129 Views |
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On Saturday I came thisclose to losing the Dawg. Well okay, it wasn't actually that close. In fact the only thing the Grim Reaper got his decrepit fingers on was my tenuous grip on reality.
It all started innocently enough. I'd given him a call around 1:00 my time just to say hey, and gotten his machine. I meowed, as is our custom, and went about my day, which included a trip to get my hair cut because seriously, dudes, I COULD NOT TAKE IT ANY MORE. I wound up gettin 3 or 4 inches chopped and a whole bunch of layers and if I can find someone from the 21st century to take a digipic I'll post it for you because it's super-cute, yo.
Anyway, Death. Okay, so when I returned home a few hours later, I checked for meows-I-mean-messages, found there were none, and settled in for some chow in front of the telly. A&E was showing a documentary called The Anatomy of September 11th, detailing the final 102 minutes of the World Trade Center. It was engrossing and I was quickly hooked.
The documentary looked at the lack of communication between NYPD and FDNY, the faulty radios that led to the deaths of hundreds of firefighters who did not hear the radioed messages to evacuate the towers, interviews with a structural engineer who used to work for FEMA who talked about how the architecture of the buildings contributed to the disaster... stuff like that. It was all quite fascinating and educational.
Of course, there were also interviews with survivors, and with family members of those who did not survive. Even after seven years, the emotional impact is undiminished when I hear this stuff. Like everyone, I remember so well, the chaos and horror of that day, the uncertainty, like the world was ending - even in Toronto, they were evacuating high rise office buildings, and sending us home. Nobody could focus on work anyway. My mom was unreachable, vacationing in the French Alps, and I was still raw and devastated from breaking up with the man I had planned to marry. I just wanted to connect with the people I loved, and my loneliness was beating louder than my heart, drowning everything else out. At the same time I felt so connected to everyone else around me. It was a strange time.
Watching these people describe their experiences of reaching out to their loved ones as they awaited certain death, I felt the need to reach out to the Dawg. I tried calling him and just got his machine again. Sigh. I went back to the documentary, where a young guy who'd gotten out just before one of the towers imploded, described how he wandered uptown, shell-shocked and covered in dust. He asked a group of people that he came across if he could borrow a phone. When they heard him say, "Mom, it's me, I'm okay", they all started crying. At home seven years later, I cried with them too. I just can't imagine.
The documentary ended, and my anxiety was at about mid-chest by then. I really wanted to talk to the Dawg. Luckily there was more television to distract me. Oh, good, another 9/11 show! Two, in fact. On Discovery, they were airing a documentary called The Flight That Fought Back, about United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, but not before many of its passengers were able to call their loved ones and describe what was happening aboard the hijacked flight. On A&E, they were airing Flight 93 (releases in theatres 2 years ago as United 93), a docudrama about same. The former featured interviews with the husbands, wives, mothers et al who spoke with their beloveds while they were experiencing the final minutes of their lives. Their stories were heartwrenching and unfathomable. The latter brought these stories to life in dramatized format.
When the mother of a 20 year old female passenger described the sound of her daughter's shallow breathing, and how she'd calmly suggested to her daughter that they both just look out at the beautiful blue sky and take deep breaths together, I started to unravel. Maybe I was over-empathizing. Maybe it was a delayed reaction from the Dawg's departure back to California. I just started to panic. I tried again to reach him, to no avail. His cell phone was also turned off. Half an hour later when I saw the same scene playing out in the movie version of the events, I just started bawling along with the mother after her daughter said goodbye. I was over the top, around the bend, out of control FREAKING.
I tried to self-talk my way through it. I told myself that the chances were really, really good that everything was fine. I flipped through a mental catalogue of friends I might call, but I was too embarrassed by my current condition to push through and reach out. After awhile I just decided to give in to the emotion, get it out of me, like a form of emotional bloodletting. My grief was so intense I couldn't see straight, and I knew I was being completely irrational and neurotic, and that the only thing I could do in that moment was just to let it run its course. I continued to watch the movies; they were like leeches attached to my psyche. Or something. (Even then I had to laugh at my propensity for drama; the Introvert Family irony is at times the only thing that saves me from myself.)
The movie ended, my wailing receded, and at last the Dawg called from the edge of the afterlife. He was compassionate and gentle in the face of my hysteria, which I described with as much self-deprecation as I could muster with my teary little voice.
Phewf, that was a close one. |
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24 Comments
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| What it all comes down to |
Aug 25, 2008 8:20 am
13212 Views |
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Good Monday morning fellow nutters.
Lots of thoughts swirling around inside my noisy brain lately, about what it means to love and be loved. I know, I know. Next thing you know I'll be posting poetry (lame-o rewrites of song lyrics don't count). It's just that my summer of love and lunacy with the Dirty Dawg draws to a close tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll kiss him goodbye and head for work, and when I come home the apartment will be empty of his presence. I am feeling the hurt already.
Anyway, schmoopiness abounds. Some things I've been learning about him and me and the nature of real, abiding love have been percolating over the last week or so, ever since our latest visit with my family.
During last summer's family visit, I found it a bit tough to accept his retreat from socializing with everyone. I understood it – god, I envied it – but I had to struggle against the urge to lash out at him for this "anti-social" behaviour, as it just made dealing with my mom and her fantasy notions of our happy, functional family that much more difficult. (There was weeping, puzzled, teary queries as to why he didn't like our family -- how about, because YOU ARE ALL CRAZY? -- and, ultimately, comparisons to my previous boyfriend. Mom, you're not helping yourself.)
My point... I am getting to one... is that more and more I believe the real challenge and ultimate fulfillment of a real and abiding love is ACCEPTANCE. This summer, rather than hope for him to be something different from his true self, something that fits better into my family mold, I accepted the Dawg's refusal to participate in the dysfunction. I appreciated it. I learned from it. Instead of pressuring him to be something different, to give up the very qualities that drew me to him in the first place, I watched him, I listened to him, I learned from him. Some could say he is anti-social. Others could say he has amazing boundaries and even integrity.
Getting back to my point... (fingers crossed)... when I accept him and stop seeing him through the lens of my own needs, my family baggage, all that crap, it frees me. It frees us both. I can see the situation from his perspective, that I have choices, that I don't have to participate in any of the dysfunction if I don't want to. It's no longer a source of anxiety for me, he becomes a source of inspiration.
By the same token, I can't begin to explain the massive relief I feel sometimes, when I realize he doesn't judge me for lying around in my pyjamas all day being unproductive or playing computer games when I could be writing or somehow bettering myself or whatever. He just accepts me. Sometimes I think he accepts me a hundred times better than I accept myself. And maybe that's another byproduct of finding true acceptance in the love of another.
All those things we don't accept in ourselves... they are often the things we project onto the ones we love.
I'm kinda rambling a bit here but I guess I just wanted to put it out there. What it all comes down to, when it comes to true love – the safety, the nurturing, the understanding, the tenderness, the compassion, the trust – it's rooted in acceptance: finding it and giving it.
What does it come down to for you?
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31 Comments
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| Sunny |
Aug 21, 2008 9:08 am
13956 Views |
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Sunny
There are days my life feels filled with rain
Sunny
You always understand when I explain
You know how I think
We're always in sync
Your ass is so sunny that your farts don't stink
Sunnyheart so true
I love you
Sunny
Thank you for that air freshener you sent
Sunny
Thank you for being such a good parent
You give them your all
Drive them to the mall
They're wonderful girls because you're there if they fall
Sunnyheart so true
We love you
Sunny
Thank you for the truth you let us see
Sunny
Your poetry is delicate and free
You're gentle and kind
You're clever and sly
Your towering strength really blows my mind
Sunnyheart so true
We love you
Happy Birthday, Pants! I love you more than I can say. (Maybe next year will be a Leo Sayer-style tribute.)
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32 Comments
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| Let's hear it for the Qat! |
Aug 21, 2008 6:02 am
12802 Views |
My qitty, he don't talk sweet
He soaks me with scent-spray
But he loves me, loves me, loves me
I know that he loves me anyway
And maybe he sheds all the time
But I don't really mind
'Cuz every time he purrs in my ear
I just wanna cheer
Let's hear it for the Qat!
Let's give the Qat a paw!
Let's hear it for my miaouw-miaouw
(Be careful of his claws)
Oh-oh, maybe he's obsessed with teats
kudos, scritches and qitty treats
But he's! Just! So! Sweet!
Let's hear it for the Qat!
TTTTSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTT!!!!
(wild, uncontrolled birthday scent-spray)
nuzzles
purrs
scritches
paws
I love that scent-spraying rogue! Happy birthday Miaouw.
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46 Comments
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| The elephant in the room |
Aug 18, 2008 1:43 pm
8457 Views |
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Family Weekend Aught Huit a.k.a. Shudderpalooza a.k.a. Tales From the Egyptian Riverbank (of Denial) is over and the Dawg and I are safely back in our corner, rocking back and forth, compulsively grooming one another, meowing forlornly and otherwise doing our best to recover.
Sweet Mother of Fuck you people! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH MY FAMILY?!!!!
In the past, I have written about my brother's wife, whom I call Shrillster-in-law. My Christmas entry was played for laughs, but this time, I don't feel like I can be so flip. It's not like anything was all that different on this visit in terms of the almost comical level of insanity, and I could surely relate a few anecdotes that would give you a giggle or two.
But I am feeling the empathetic tenderness of my nephew's black and blue ego, and it isn't funny, it's heartbreaking. My niece, too... in fact, on Sunday morning the two of them were having an off-the-cuff discussion about which one of them their mom hates more. (To me it is no contest, she has always had a hate-on for my adorable, wonderful nephew, and so I was shocked to hear that my beautiful, fantastic niece thinks she's the hands-down winner in this competition... she cited the times her mom threatened to kick her out of the house -- say WHA??? -- and how she'd responded by saying her mom couldn't do that until she was 16 anyway, so nyah.
I mean, these remarks are all made so casually, as if it's a joke, as if it's normal for your mom to threaten to kick you out. I could tell from the tone of the conversation that it probably wasn't a "real" threat, any more than any of Shrillster's threats are real - they are intimidation tactics meant to muscle her will upon her children.
On Friday night, Nephew, Dawg and I stayed up late working on a jigsaw puzzle. Well, we started off working on it. But it turned out Nephew just really needed to unload. For years, it has been my policy (not always successfully observed, but I do try) not to badmouth their mother or show my disgust with her methods, because I figured that validating their feelings of injustice would only fuel the constant conflict with their mom, and perhaps make matters worse for them. Instead I've just tried to provide distraction, fun, love, acceptance and whatever positive influence I can.
But Nephew is 17 now, and Niece will be 16 in December. They are young adults, and they have had enough. They openly mock and deride the Shrillster. When they came to pick me and the Dawg up at the commuter train station before we headed out to my mom's place, they rolled their eyes constantly whenever the subject of their mom came up. They have no respect for her whatsoever, and it doesn't look like they have any affection for her either. It's so sad.
So when Nephew started to open up and confide in me his experiences and feelings about his family, I let him know exactly what I thought of the whole fucked up mess. I mean, I held back on the Full Noisy Rant Treatment, because it was his floor, his feelings, that needed validation and a sympathetic ear. I let him do most of the talking, but I didn't try to talk him out of any of his feelings about his mom and her insanity. I agreed with most of it.
On the ride up, Nephew, a newly minted driver, was at the wheel, while Shrillster sat next to him, barking and hissing and squawking constantly. At one point, it was raining really hard, and trucks were passing him at 120 kph, and he kept his cool and didn't let his mom rattle him either. When the rain ended I called out from the back of the van to say what a great job he'd done. Later he told me he thought I was being sarcastic, because nobody ever says encouraging, kind things in this family, unless it's meant to be interpreted as a dig.
Shrillster must have commented 3 or 4 times about how skinny my nephew is. Not just commented, but snarked. WHO DOES THAT?
The Dawg said something yesterday after we were mercifully extracted from the lair of the shrill worm, that really hit home for me. He knows about my own childhood, how often I felt unprotected, left to fend for myself, within my own family when my brother beat the hell out of me because my mom was too tired at the end of the day to deal with it, or because she hates conflict and would just start blubbering about how she wished we could get along the way she always did with her brothers. There was no justice. And my niece and nephew are growing up with that legacy too. Theirs is a household of shocking, unbelievable injustice.
Why has no one spoken up? Why do we all allow this insidious abuse to continue? Where is their father in this mess? Emotionally checked out long ago, passive, indifferent, useless. And what about their grandmother? She notices, she worries, she talks about it with me, and she makes excuses for it (last fall when she started weeping on my couch because she didn't think the Dawg liked her or our family, I tried to explain the impact of the Shrillster's behaviour, her mere presence, and my mom's reaction was to say, "it isn't that bad").
And where have I been? Why haven't I said something? How can I have left these two children unprotected, especially having grown up feeling that way myself?
It's almost too much to process. It's too much.
I gotta get back to my rocking now.
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26 Comments
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| Bad Mood Rising |
Aug 12, 2008 9:29 am
7679 Views |
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I see a bad mood rising
I see a fuckstick dolt buffet
I see injuries and crying
I see bad times today
Don't come around my desk
In case you hadn't guessed
There's a bad mood on the rise
I hear incessant stupid questions
I hear that loud obnoxious laugh
I hear that Noisy's got aggression
I hear she's gonna kill all staff
Don't come around my desk
You insipid, mewling pest
There's a bad mood on the rise
Hope you heed this simple warning
Hope you will cut a wide berth
She's been like this all morning
Leaving a trail of scorched earth
Don't come around my desk
Seriously, no jest
There's a bad mood on the rise |
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24 Comments
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| Re-upped like the chump I am |
Aug 11, 2008 11:57 am
7004 Views |
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Goddammit, I renewed my Silver membership.
I hate it when my anti-corporate fuck beliefs butt up against my apathetic-who-cares-it's-only-money beliefs. Those greasy pukes, they were counting on it!!
Last time around I subscribed for three months, and when the time was up, at the beginning of July, I was having a lean month, work was (still is, not that you can tell) super-busy, and I was kinda bored with summertime in the blahgs, so I decided not to renew.
In the first place, I thought I'd set my account to shut off the auto-renew, but the way the form is set up is SO SNEAKY - even when you go to turn off the auto-renew, there's a button that looks like a "Submit" sort of thing at the bottom of the page, and if you don't read it (like the chump I am) and just assuuuuume it's a submit button, you'll think you've turned the sucker off.
BUT it actually says "Keep My Autorenew On". Like, why would I want to keep it on, when I just fucking clicked to turn it off? Below this button is a plain text link that says "Set to OFF". (Meanwhile, when you want to turn it on, you click "Set to ON" once, and that's it, you're done.)
So last time I thought I'd turned it off when in fact I hadn't.
THEN! Ever since I'd subscribed, there was a message in the upper right area of my member home page that said "Your account expires on July 3, 2008 with auto-renew set to ON." So when I (fruitlessly, chumpfully) went to turn the auto-renew off, it was July 2. But... wait a second. Now it says that my account expires on August 3, 2008. The fuck?
Meanwhile, these greasy fucks had gone ahead and auto-renewed me a day before they'd been promising to do it for the past THREE MONTHS.
So I called them up and said, "Cha, right, refund, fuckface!" Next thing you know, my credit card's refunded, and Noisy_Introvert is now Noisy_Ether_Dirt. Poof. Gone-zo. The peckerhead on the phone assumed that because I didn't want to be silver anymore, that I didn't want to exist any longer. GAH. I spent the weekend in limbo, called up customer service a couple days later, and got reactivated with nary an apology for the pain and suffering inflicted upon me and all the people in the Friends Network who knew not what had become of me. ("Oh My God! They killed Noisy!" "Those BASTARDS!")
And yet here I am, six weeks later, chumpdefied in a tinfoil wrap once again. The thing is, I like that my comments show up sooner on blogs, the "free" e-mail option (not that I use it that often, given my e-mail sucknaciousness), the responding within comments crap, and whatever.
I'm a chump, I admit it.
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16 Comments
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| Dr. Supernanny |
Aug 7, 2008 9:03 am
Mood: 61, 6797 Views |
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Last night I learned something new from kleopetra, who has been unwittingly sucked into a state of flux: When Life hands you reality, watch reality TV.
Have any of you watched Supernanny? I discovered it a couple weeks ago. To me, Supernanny is near-perfect. You have your fuckwit breeders and their spawn of Screwtape hellions, living a life of utter misery and chaos. Jo "JoJo" Frost steps in, looking crisp and attractive but in a non-threatening way because she is not a stick-insect, and watches, aghast. She apes for the camera as if she has never in her life seen such abuses.
Then you get to see Jo let the breeders have it. This is glorious. She lays into them, and you feel as if they've rolled back the clock ten years on Dr. Phil, to when he was the Commonsense Voice of the People once a week on Oprah, giving folks the verbal smack upside the head they so richly deserved without lapsing into Springeresque bombast and histrionics.
But wait! There's more! After the parents are humiliated with the wake-up call, JoJo next provides them with actual tools for improving the situation, unlike Dr. Douche, who just chucks a rolodex at his producers after the show and sends his harried guests home with a reference to a real professional and a bound collection of the Dr. Phil Life Strategies For Clueless Fuckups series, a year-long subscription to match·com, an introductory supply of Shape Up! nutritionally balanced weight management products, an autographed, framed photograph of Robin, Jordan, Jay and Phil (with booking information for Jay printed on the insert), and Robin's New York Times #1 bestseller, Inside My Heart: Choosing to Live with Passion and Purpose.
Jo explains the techniques, such as physically getting down to the level of the child, explaining why they are being disciplined in words they can understand, making eye contact, and modelling appropriate behaviour. Then she demonstrates them, firmly, but with love and compassion (although she simply will not countenance any naughty bullshit, from parents or children). Then she leaves for a couple days and lets the parents figure it out for themselves. Then she comes back and gently corrects any deviations from the techniques, opens her umbrella, and flies off to the next witless family.
She is extremely empathetic. Last night, the Dad was acting like the drill sargeant in Full Metal Jacket at dinner (but way less effective), yelling at his kids and barking orders at them, getting borderline abusive when they failed to heed his command. Jo took him out of the situation and instead of lambasting him like I thought she would, gently probed to find out the source of this father's behaviour. The guy breaks down in tears and they talk about the fact he never had a father figure growing up and how he knows he's blowing it and he just wants to reach out and connect in a meaningful way with his boys. Holy shit, I couldn't believe it! Supernanny gave him this totally sincere, healing hug and then set about fixing EVERYTHING!
I checked out what the information superhighway had to say about Supernanny, including her credentials. I thought for sure she was a multi-lettered expert in child psychology or something, but, nope. Just a nanny. A SUPER nanny. This is another reason why I trust her. She is has a really solid balance of experience, empathy, common sense and intuitiveness.
Some of the reviews I read found the show to be repetitive and formulaic, and they found Jo to be a bit judgy and dramatic (e.g. last night she asked the parents what they would say to the courtroom when one or all of their sons became "juvenile delinquents" because they'd been playing mature video games and thought it was fun to explode peoples' heads) but they miss the point. THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT AWESOME. Dr. Phil used to be awesome in this way, until it became clear that he is just a greedy, opportunistic, nepotistic, moralizing, simplifying, Republican douchebag with no substance or tools to back up his denunciations.
JoJo always has a hug for the fuckwits, so it's heartwarming in the aftermath of the horrifying. I would pay serious cash for an American Gladiator throwdown between Dr. Douche and the Supernanny.
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20 Comments
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To link to this blog from blog posts/comments, use [blog Noisy_Introvert], from anywhere else use http://personals.girlfriendsmag.com/blog/Noisy_Introvert, and to read it remotely use the feed.
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