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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Bus Stop Boy


Well now.

So, I guess I should tell you about Bus Stop Boy, now that I’ve finally broken down and updated one of the people I have in my life whose main relationship with me is about helping me work on relationships.

Over the summer, I began to see Bus Stop Boy, as you might imagine… at the bus stop. I was temping in the city, and was sometimes taking this bus, sometimes that. I’d just begun to pay attention to how I interact with men, trying to focus less on if they’re noticing me or not, how I’m interpreting or internalizing that information. And Bus Stop Boy was one of these people. I was aware of him, and he was aware of me. There was nothing more or less than that, but a definite vibe. Not even flirty, just aware.

One morning, a few months ago, I had come from meeting with the aforementioned woman the previous day, highly aware now of how I was walking in the world, and I saw him at the bus stop. Suddenly, I had no idea how to behave. I didn’t want to be all coy, I didn’t know how to just stand there. I felt a wave of panic wash over me, and as some of you may remember, I had to leave work as soon as I got there and come home and crawl into a fetal position. Everyone on BART was standing too close. Whatever it was that my being aware of who and how you were reacting to me – it had acted as a buffer somehow between us. And suddenly, seeing Bus Stop Boy, … it was like seeing the Matrix. Suddenly I could see that everywhere I looked and every move that I made, I was hyper aware of it, and I was aware if you were aware of it. I felt stripped of some defense mechanism – I felt utterly exposed, and completely unsure of how to act.

A rather large reaction to simply seeing a dude at the bus stop. But, that’s what happened. It took me days to get back to feeling right. And, in fact, I stopped taking the bus, and opted to take carpool with a friend of mine during the rest of my temp gig.

I’m still aware of how others react to me, and, duh, that’s going to continue to happen. People interact. However, I am trying to pay less attention to if “he,” whoever “he” is, saw me. Noticed. If you’re noticing how I’m holding myself or not. I’m trying to keep myself to myself when I’m out and about. Not closing myself off, but simply focusing more on me, and what I’m doing, not on you.

This said, things have progressed.

I ran into Bus Stop Boy when I was on the bus going into the city for an interview about a month or more ago. I was aware, he was aware. We both went for the one seat that was open, and he let me have it. When getting off the bus, I got off in front of him, and turned around and thanked him for the seat, held out my hand, and said I’m Molly, by the way. He took my hand, said his name, said he hadn’t seen me on the bus for a while. I replied I hadn’t been on the bus for a while, we both smiled, said see you around.

In reporting this later to my friend, I talked about “getting a hit” off it. I was nervous about this job interview, and I knew I could get a little hit from talking to this guy. Sure, there’s the normality of introducing yourself to someone you see nearly daily just for the sake of that, and I could file this under that, but I know my underlying reasoning – I wanted to feel better, and talking to an attractive guy who seems to think I’m attractive too is a reliable way to do that. (I was about to write it’s a “good way” to do that, but, this is where I run into trouble.) I felt more spring in my step on my way to my interview, now that I had gotten that burst of acknowledgment from this stranger.

A little while later, I am on my way to another interview, and I see him on the street in plain clothes with a girl, walking a small dog. Girlfriend, I think, and keep walking. Well, I say to myself, there’s that taken off the table. He’s got a girlfriend.

A little while later, about 3 weeks ago, I’m on my way home finally for the evening, having had an awful day at work – feeling my feelings of despair around administrative work, around having worked so hard for months to get something so menial, I’d come home from work bawling on the phone with a friend, before I went back out to meet up with some folks for an hour. Suffice it to say that I was drained of all emotional guile. Of all resistance. Of all pretense.

Funny, then, that I should walk into Peet’s coffee, and there he is. Bus Stop Boy at 8pm on a Wednesday evening. My eye make-up long cried off. My incognito hat. Glasses. This is not the look of a temptress. He’s on line ahead of me, and so I say hello. We chat a bit; we’ve both started new jobs. We small talk, laugh a bit. I say see you around.

And now, suddenly, we are seeing each other around a lot. I next run into him unexpectedly on the shuttle from BART – again on a day when I'd sat at the bus stop from work in near-tears. Waiting – FORTY FIVE MINUTES – for a bus from Berkeley. Taking me nearly two hours to get home from ONE TOWN AWAY.

And there he is. The second time in a row when I'd felt depleted, and, perhaps, open. 

It hasn't eluded me that these unusual times that I've seen him are at times when I could most use a nod from the universe, some semblance of, Molly - you're not a worthless, aimless, trundling-along broke spinster. It has not escaped me that during my new days of data entry, receptionist calls, arguments with xerox machines, I'd begun to think of that morning's conversation with Bus Stop Boy, and it takes me out of my vile existence. It reminds me that I am more than my job. It reminds me that I am something more than that. Simply by recalling the smile of a near stranger, my chest feels less constricted - I feel less trapped. Is this "meaningful"? Is a nudge from "THE UNIVERSE"? Is it just a coincidence? Is it simply pointing out to me the pleasure I take in fantasy rather than reality?

I moved my bags, and he sat down next to me. After some chit chat, I said, I think I saw you with your girlfriend walking your dog a few weeks ago (she says leadingly). He got a sudden look, and said, “Ex...” That was their goodbye. She came to visit for two weeks. She’s been living in D.C. for the past year, looking for work there and here, and she got a job there, and, as he told to me, he wasn’t ready to move back East.

He seemed pretty bummed. Secretly, I thought two things. One: emotionally unavailable. Two: Single. ...

So, finally, friends, here’s the kicker. What I admitted to my girl friend earlier today: I have invited him to come with me to a party my friend is having this Saturday. “As friends,” I said. But as I spoke to my friend earlier today, … I have no interest, really, in being this guy’s friend. Nor do I know that I want to be in a relationship with him. I barely know anything about him. Do I want to get to know him better? Yes. Am I dating right now? No. Is he? I should hope not! Long-term relationship break-up does not really equal available for a new one any time soon.

So, what to do? Well, my friend and I spoke earlier about some “bottom lines” I could set around this. The only thing I could come up with, which she suggested, was not hanging out one-on-one.

She asked me at the end of our meeting how I felt. I said Stubborn. (She laughed.) I said, Disappointed. The addict part of me wants those hits. Those doses of feeling something other than overwhelmed with money or lack thereof. With feeling lost as to my life’s direction or purpose. With feeling lonely, mainly.

As I begin to get some “recovery” or sense of what is healthy behavior around relationships, I realize that the majority of my recent women friends are actively engaged in behavior that I just don’t identify with anymore. I just don’t have anything to say to my friend who’s texting an unavailable dude daily. Or who just bought sex toys for a threesome. Or who is in and out of her relationship with the phases of the moon. Which means, and has meant for me, that several close friendships I’ve had are being let go of -- are fading.

Further to the "lonely" part, as I said to my friend this morning, I haven’t been dating for a year. I haven’t had sex in a year. I am only human. And there’s only so much I can take.

She said she gets it. She felt the same when she was going through this work. The truth is that I’m doing inventory on my relationship past, and I don’t want to be involved with anyone while I’m going through this emotionally raw stuff. I don't (really) want to use someone else to band-aid the work that I'm doing. The truth is also that I’ve finally gotten paid, and much of my financial crisis is averted, so I finally have the chance to feel a little less stressed out.

Yes, there is only so much I can take. Luckily, I feel a modicum more freedom right now, yes, due to money, what-the-fuck-ever to people who say it won’t make you happy – sorry, food in my fridge makes me fucking happy, assholes. But that release from imminent worry creates a little more ease. That little more ease means I won't have to reach out to false idols for solace, false idols like the green-fade-to-brown eyes of the Bus Stop Boy.

I can do things to help me bolster and support myself, now that I’m not as "man the battleships!" Things which will provide more sustainable relief and support – I can reconnect with friends who aren’t stuck in unhealthy patterns. I can finally feel the room to write and paint again. 

Do I still absolutely want to just rest my head on his shoulder and relax to the marrow of every organ in my body? YES.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Go Toward the Open Door.


Wise women have told me this occasionally over the last few years. And, this is just the opportunity I got this weekend – to go toward the open door.

Originally planned for this weekend, was helping my immensely talented and ambitious friend by volunteering at her art show benefit for Japan. My volunteering for her had come as a status reduction from being in the art show, as during the time of my unemployment, I realized I was not energetically inclined toward creative production, nor, unfortunately, toward the donation of any art I currently own. So, I downgraded myself to volunteer last month.

Then, I continued to be unemployed, and although now (halleLUjah) employed, I don’t get paid until the 15th of this month. Her show was planned for last night, Saturday night, and I have $40 to my name until Friday. I had to tell her I couldn’t do it. I simply couldn't afford the roundtrip to the city. It just wasn't feasible.

Do I/did I feel like a flake? Yeah. Was there anything I could do about it? No.

In the meantime, having unceremoniously bowed out of volunteering, on Friday morning my office was in the midst of heading out for the weekend to a “Shabbaton,” basically, a weekend at an overnight summer camp in the Santa Rosa mountains, where 250 members of the congregation (did I mention I work, now, at a synagogue?), kids, grandparenty-types, Board members, staff members, would all gather and have a hella Jewish weekend (well, hella Reform Jewish weekend – which includes guitars, LOTS of clapping on the up-beat, and the community-sanctioned use of a cappuccino machine on Shabbat).

I, was not going to go. I told them over this week and a half of my new employment that I wouldn’t be able to go, as I was volunteering with my friend’s art show. And, part of me didn’t really want to see these people, as I was still feeling rather resentful at being a freakin’ secretary, answering phones and manipulating mail merges.

However, there was another part of me who is, about 7, I’d say. And she, every time I heard someone wish me a good weekend as they were departing on Friday afternoon, would say to me, I wanna go to camp!.

I wanna go. I wanna go to camp. I wanna sleep in a bunk, and clap during song session, and eat at long uncomfortable tables, and see the mountains. I wanna go to camp!

She whispered this to me all day. Indeed, she’d been whispering it with increasing intensity all week, but adult me was too pissed at these people for having supporting roles in the drama of my life that was once again entitled, “Molly: The Disgruntled Employee.”

Then, however, came the reality that I would not, in fact, be joining my friend for her art show. And I’d been offered a ride by another reluctant employee earlier in the week, that she was going up on Saturday morning, coming back on Sunday, and I could ride with her.

She’s new to the office as well, and I could sense that perhaps we could get along. So I told her I’d think about it. And, as she was generously giving me a ride the the bus stop on Friday afternoon, long after almost everyone else had defected for the mountains, my little girl was screaming to be heard.

I was, in fact, on the bus home when I finally gave in to her. I called the woman, and I told her that if she was still willing, I’d love to ride with her to the Shabbaton.

Because, in reality, my alternative now, without the art show, was to sit on Saturday in my apartment, continue to read my Zadie Smith novel, see a few friends, and putz around, as per usual. I saw that very clearly as I rode that bus through Berkeley. Everything as per boring usual.

I have been camping once this summer. Several months ago now. I have kept my childlike spirit drowned out with the adult business of interviewing, resumes, finance planning, budgeting, cost efficiency, worry worry worry. There has been nearly NO play in the last 3 months. At all. A few movies here and there for a break from the awful soul-crushing of unemployment, but other than that, no glitter, sparse laughter, begrudging fun, and a riotous need to DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

So, I said YES. I went toward the open door.

The adult in me was also very calculatingly clear, with its Cheshire cat smile, that this weekend away would not cost me a penny. That I would have good meals I didn’t have to cook, pay for, or clean up from. That I would get the chance to go to the mountains, and hike there, as I did, without paying for a rental car, gas money, a camp site, anything at all.

I would be able to get out of dodge simply by saying “yes.”

To think that I almost didn’t makes me laugh at myself.

The weekend itself was both satisfying, and exhausting. Exhausting, as I was “on” the whole time, schmoozing with people, making my new presence known. It was not an entirely selfless or avocational decision to go up, obviously – it was/is also important to me that people got to know me as more than the receptionist, should the ears of the executive director be listening to the chatter in the water. Phrases like “raise” and “room for growth” come to mind as I go forward with this job. It was a political decision. – Also, it exposes/d me to people who might be good contacts later on.

Indeed, there was a published/working poet there with whom I got to spend some good conversations. The last one included my bald question, “Is it worth the fight?” [to be a writer, to pursue this {or indeed any} art, to continue to put one word after another as a sign that we mean something to ourselves, others, this world we live in – that we are not floating mindlessly through it – that we value our experiences – that we mold and shape them and ply them and tongue them and pinch them into these characters we imprint on paper and screen … Is it worth the fight to do this?]

His answer, after the knowing laugh, was yes, if you believe it is.

I believe it is. I believe in marking my existence. I believe in questioning it, turning it, shaping it, and being shaped by it.

I believe in inviting you to share it with me. To tell me how you see it, to let me have my own world shaped for a moment or more by how it is you walk in the world.

By saying yes to this weekend, I allowed cherished and often dismissed parts of me to sing in the sunshine. To look at the Milky Way, for Christ’s sake. To dance in a circle of women, to talk blogging with a stay-at-home dad. I got to see a fawn pounce through the brittle brush and pet baby goats, and to sing at my most favorite service in all of Judaism, Havdallah, the closing of Shabbat, where we say good-bye to the week we’ve had, and we welcome the week to come. The service where we invite the sweetness of Shabbat to come with us into and sustain us through the coming week.

It is a service that dances the edge of wistful, grateful endings and limitless, renewed beginnings. And, simply, it has the best music.

Shavuah Tov, friends – May you have a happy week.  

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Normal Functioning Levels


In an effort to “put my needs first,” I’ve decided to change this to a weekly, instead of a daily, blog. So, Sunday will be our day together, folks. Two buses and an 8:30am clock-in time will make weekday blogging a little bit like killing a wildebeest before breakfast – highly unnecessary.

So, I have a job. ! This past week, starting on Wednesday, I began working in the front office of a synagogue in Berkeley. This, will be an adjustment. Honestly, my commute was easier when I was crossing the bridge! But, I have a job. I needed one, and now, finally, I have one. I’m still not clear on wtf it took so long to find one. It certainly does fall into the "underearning" category of a job “below my education and skill level,” but, then again, the first bit of advice in the How to get out of debt… book is **Get A Job, ANY Job** So, I have a job.

It’s not going to be that bad either. There are a lot of systems in place that are way wonky, i.e. ten-step processes, when they could be 3, but that’s sort of why I’m there. In the rest of life, usually when I want to help others streamline things in their lives or make them better, it’s usually none of my damn business and I get to practice holding my tongue and trusting they're on their own path. But, luckily, here, it very literally is my business, and so, I’m going to get to organize and streamline, and “correct” what’s really silly.

That’s part of the advantage of coming in to a new place, you see things that other people haven’t noticed, really, in years. Why do you click these three things instead of this one? Oh, I don’t know, it’s just how I was trained, so that’s how I do it. Why is there an old, dusty dead Foreman grill in the kitchen – does anyone use it? I don’t know, it’s just always been there. WHY do you print off paper calendars of the entire year for the weekly staff meeting that barely get glanced at, and then thrown away?… So, I do get to come in, with fresh eyes, and be like, whoa, uh, this is stupid.

That said, there are going to be a lot of advantages to this job that are not monetary. There’s a pre-school, and this week, the little kids were getting their intro week, so I got to see all these two and three year olds come in the front door, all nervous or excited. I got to encourage them. There’s a very sweet, wise-ass kid studying for his Bar Mitzvah who comes to hang out almost daily with the youth group advisor, so we get to wise-ass at each other. There’s a piano in the chapel off the main sanctuary that once I get keys, I was told absolutely, I could come in there and play during lunch.

It’s not a bank. That’s an advantage. It’s a synagogue. This means people coming in looking to volunteer; retirees looking at the gift shop for cards or mezuzahs. Kids coming for Hebrew school; adults coming for Torah study. It’s a community that I’m getting to become a part of. And that’s not something every job has at all.

Even though, I’ll tell you, I was highly disappointed that I didn’t get the Marketing job I wanted, (and I got a letter from the IRS this week saying that I owe them money from 2010, likely because I didn’t report my student loan money properly), this isn’t going to be that bad. Am I still going to be living a bit meagerly? Likely. It’s not a high paying position in the slightest. Is it more than minimum wage? Yes. Am I waiting tables? No. Am I making sales calls all day, like one of the jobs I interviewed for? No.

It could be worse. And, it can only get better, I suppose.

Mostly, I am glad that my stress hormones are in retreat. Returning to normal, without the barely contained underground river of how am I going to pay my bills??? I slept almost the whole day yesterday. It’s like, with the stress in retreat, the whole system floods with a great big PAUSE, system shutting down now, crisis averted. Yesterday I woke up, ate breakfast, thought about going to the farmer’s market, and climbed back into bed, waking up 4 hours later. Took another mini nap after trips to the library and grocery store, cooked dinner, watched a dvd, and went to bed at a decent time.

I needed it. Obviously. I’ve been stressed, man.

In that/this period, though, I’ve also started to do some other things. I’ve begun to soak my own chickpeas to make hummus from scratch. I’ve begun to marinate tofu so that I can bake it. I bought quinoa from the bulk section at a way cheaper price than anything packaged. All of these organic, all of them cheaper than buying ready packed or ready made.

I’ve really enjoyed doing this. Experimenting with different flavors in the hummus, roasted red pepper (jarred, but one day, maybe my own), garlic, pine nuts, lemon. Using the tofu marinade to pour onto veggies I’ve steamed to go with them. I’m getting healthier in my eating habits. More interested, and more creative. Part of that creativity was borne of necessity, the need to buy things cheaper as money has run out during these months of unemployment.

Coffee is no longer in my cabinets. This makes me awfully sad. But, it’s not good for me, so I’ve been reading, so it’s going the way of the dodo. That, I will miss. But it’s not like coffee’s moved to England, and I’ll never see it again. I did, indeed, get some decaf with some caf this week. There’s just nothing quite like the texture of coffee.

One place I had coffee was at the poetry reading on Thursday, at which I read my rather explicit new poems. I didn’t preface them by saying the experiences described were mostly not current, which I sort of wish I’d said, as what will people THINK of me??, but it all went well. I got good feedback on my work. The words “bold,” “brave,” and “funny” were thrown around. I’m glad I read the work, even though I was nervous about it. Every time I perform, it makes me want to do it more, and again.

I wasn’t able to “get it together” to make broadsides of the poem I wanted to, but there will be time for that. I had a few other things on my mind this week!

All in all, it was a highly emotional week. The anticipation of whether I was going to get the job I wanted. Interviewing for it at 9:30pm Sunday night via Skype and finding out at 11pm that I hadn’t gotten it (the other girl had more “proven experience”). Waking up Monday morning, knowing I was about to accept a job that has the same title and pay rate as a job I accepted 5 years ago. Calling a friend to ask if I could ask them for more money. Crying, mourning the loss of where I think I ought to be, and what I ought to be doing. The loss of my ability to save on any significant level so that I might move back East some time this century.

And then calling to ask for more money, not getting what I asked, but a token amount more than what they offered. The new chaos of commuting to a new job. The first few days of a job when everyone is still evaluating you. The knowledge dump into my brain from the girl whose job I’m taking and training with. The highly anticipated poetry reading where I was bold and brave and scared as fuck. And the crash, like air let out of a balloon, a deflating of all the energy, worry, and stress as I crashed out yesterday.

There are still going to be challenges, of course. This is a new job. There’s a lot to continue to learn, and the girl I’m replacing leaves on Thursday. I still do have some financial issues to contend with like the IRS letter, and the fact that I don’t get paid till the 15th. But, by the way, I did sell my electric guitar and the amp for the price I never thought I would get (thank g-d for asking for help). So, it will be ok. But, I still feel deflated. I’m going to need time to bulk back up and refuel to normal functioning levels.

Til then, and in order to get there, I will TRY to be kind to myself. Get out of my head, and my own problems. And be grateful, if even for a moment, that I am finally employed at a job that is far from atrocious.