I learned a B Major chord on guitar tonight! This is definitely a small thing as far as highlights of a day usually go, but it's hugely significant for me. Because:
-it's a bar chord, and those are hard for someone with violin-trained fingers. I really thought for a long time that I might never be able to play them. And now I can play B, and I can switch to and from it in the context of other chords!
-it means I can play a LOT more things.
-it means there's hope that I will be able to play even more things.
-it's progress! BIG progress, and that's the kind of encouragement I really need right now.
Most of all, this B chord was basically a triumph of perseverance, which is just a fantastically motivating and self-rewarding feeling all at once. Onward and upward!
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Persistent Thoughts
I’m driving myself crazy. You know when something gets in your head and you can’t get it out, but it’s not just annoying like a song because you really want to just fix it, but you’re STUCK, you CAN’T, and it’s just so incredibly frustrating that you can’t let it go?
I’ve decided to just refuse to talk about it. I know I can’t refuse to think about it—that never works for people like me—but usually when something bugs me I use constant, subject-exhausting discussion as an outlet to vent it, and I suspect that this only makes it worse. So this time I’m going to try something different.
It’s a lot like dealing with really difficult customers: you simply refuse to engage in their crap. You don’t allow yourself to respond to any of their passive-aggressive or straight-up rude comments, you acknowledge only what is absolutely necessary, and you get the job done matter-of-factly and get them out of there. I’ve become pretty good at this since I started working 80-hour customer service weeks, so hopefully I’ll be able to direct that skill towards managing the more difficult areas of my own consciousness.
I’ve decided to just refuse to talk about it. I know I can’t refuse to think about it—that never works for people like me—but usually when something bugs me I use constant, subject-exhausting discussion as an outlet to vent it, and I suspect that this only makes it worse. So this time I’m going to try something different.
It’s a lot like dealing with really difficult customers: you simply refuse to engage in their crap. You don’t allow yourself to respond to any of their passive-aggressive or straight-up rude comments, you acknowledge only what is absolutely necessary, and you get the job done matter-of-factly and get them out of there. I’ve become pretty good at this since I started working 80-hour customer service weeks, so hopefully I’ll be able to direct that skill towards managing the more difficult areas of my own consciousness.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Burn Right Up
You know the feeling, that thrillingly thrilled happy feeling. That feeling when everything is just going great and you're on top of the world. The feeling that (at least for me) often seems to follows a sugar rush or a hilarious moment or an impromptu dance party. You know the feeling I'm talking about. I love that feeling. It's fantastic. I seek it out. And it scares me a little bit.
There's an edge to it, a little bit of a crazy edge like you might just go off the deep end and never come back. Maybe I'm a little too paranoid, a little over-sensitive, or a little melodramatic, but sometimes I have this sense that that feeling is bound to be followed by something so awfully opposite. Like you're going to spin and spin and spin out of control.
That happy feeling comes to me in a wave, good things and good emotions building and building until it breaks and washes all over me and I just ride it. But it's a thrilled and not a content happiness, and that's where the edge of crazy comes in. It's never real, important, sense-making things, but rather small, silly things that appeal to my arrogance or sense of excitement. It's like a mental and emotional high, all these little things making me feel better and better about myself until I'm fueling my own fire, I'm sparkling, I'm flying, and then I think that I might just burn right up in a big fiery END.
Maybe I've let too many plot formulas permeate my perception of how real life should play out, but I can't shake this tiny obsession with tragedy, something I might almost call an actual belief. It's the sense that I am somehow not doomed but rather destined to tragedy. I sort of hate to say it, I sort of hate to put it out there in the universe, but I also sort of feel that it must be articulated. That my whole life has really been incredibly lucky, incredibly wonderful, and that this lucky streak must inevitably conclude in explosive fashion. There's maybe even a certain arrogance to that, in a way: it must come from identifying as the heroine of my own plot, because disaster wouldn't be tragic if it befell a minor character. A fall would only be a drop if it weren't from a great height. Maybe the proverbial pride that comes before a fall is that very specific arrogance that allows you to see yourself as the hero deserving the tragedy, and thus bring it on yourself.
There's an edge to it, a little bit of a crazy edge like you might just go off the deep end and never come back. Maybe I'm a little too paranoid, a little over-sensitive, or a little melodramatic, but sometimes I have this sense that that feeling is bound to be followed by something so awfully opposite. Like you're going to spin and spin and spin out of control.
That happy feeling comes to me in a wave, good things and good emotions building and building until it breaks and washes all over me and I just ride it. But it's a thrilled and not a content happiness, and that's where the edge of crazy comes in. It's never real, important, sense-making things, but rather small, silly things that appeal to my arrogance or sense of excitement. It's like a mental and emotional high, all these little things making me feel better and better about myself until I'm fueling my own fire, I'm sparkling, I'm flying, and then I think that I might just burn right up in a big fiery END.
Maybe I've let too many plot formulas permeate my perception of how real life should play out, but I can't shake this tiny obsession with tragedy, something I might almost call an actual belief. It's the sense that I am somehow not doomed but rather destined to tragedy. I sort of hate to say it, I sort of hate to put it out there in the universe, but I also sort of feel that it must be articulated. That my whole life has really been incredibly lucky, incredibly wonderful, and that this lucky streak must inevitably conclude in explosive fashion. There's maybe even a certain arrogance to that, in a way: it must come from identifying as the heroine of my own plot, because disaster wouldn't be tragic if it befell a minor character. A fall would only be a drop if it weren't from a great height. Maybe the proverbial pride that comes before a fall is that very specific arrogance that allows you to see yourself as the hero deserving the tragedy, and thus bring it on yourself.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Back
Once again it's been far too long since I've written anything (here anyway), not because there's been nothing to write about but because there's been too much going on. And it's like paperwork--I let all these things build up in my head and I put off writing them down, and then when I finally set aside time for it the task just feels too overwhelming. I think that's a big part of why I'm terrible at staying in touch: when you talk to someone for the first time in weeks it just seems impossible to tell them everything in any way that might make it possible for them to understand your life. Constant upkeep is the only way to do it.
But, things really have been happening. Big, important things and little, silly things, and lots of things that are significant in some minor way but mostly just irrelevant to everything. And this time I'm not going to let all those things fall by the wayside just because I was too busy or too lazy to articulate them as they actually came up. I'm going to go back and address each one, because each one was important at the time, and because I want to learn my lesson so I don't let this happen again. It would really be pretty easy if I would just keep up with it. And it may actually get even easier in just a few weeks . . . I am cutting down on waitressing! Not quitting (yet), because I feel bad and I've only been there for a month, but limiting my availability severely because I got the job I wanted!
It's a full-time job at the string store, my first full-time job ever, and it's just perfect: I get to work in an environment I love, with wonderful people, and get paid and get health insurance and have way more time (to write! and practice!) for myself, and it's interesting! It still hasn't quite sunk in yet that this actually happened for me, but I have a desk! And a title! And business cards! And a key to the company van! And I just can't believe how lucky I was to have found this place at all, let alone to have a full-time job only a month out of college in THIS economy (and to think as recently as December I was sure I'd never get a job or an apartment). And it's still basically customer service, which means plenty of material to write about--I just have to keep up with it. And I will this time! As a little jump-start, something I wrote junior year and just found, and actually kind of like is here. I always really hope for and appreciate comments, but especially with this, something a little more creative (and therefore more personal), I would love some feedback.
But, things really have been happening. Big, important things and little, silly things, and lots of things that are significant in some minor way but mostly just irrelevant to everything. And this time I'm not going to let all those things fall by the wayside just because I was too busy or too lazy to articulate them as they actually came up. I'm going to go back and address each one, because each one was important at the time, and because I want to learn my lesson so I don't let this happen again. It would really be pretty easy if I would just keep up with it. And it may actually get even easier in just a few weeks . . . I am cutting down on waitressing! Not quitting (yet), because I feel bad and I've only been there for a month, but limiting my availability severely because I got the job I wanted!
It's a full-time job at the string store, my first full-time job ever, and it's just perfect: I get to work in an environment I love, with wonderful people, and get paid and get health insurance and have way more time (to write! and practice!) for myself, and it's interesting! It still hasn't quite sunk in yet that this actually happened for me, but I have a desk! And a title! And business cards! And a key to the company van! And I just can't believe how lucky I was to have found this place at all, let alone to have a full-time job only a month out of college in THIS economy (and to think as recently as December I was sure I'd never get a job or an apartment). And it's still basically customer service, which means plenty of material to write about--I just have to keep up with it. And I will this time! As a little jump-start, something I wrote junior year and just found, and actually kind of like is here. I always really hope for and appreciate comments, but especially with this, something a little more creative (and therefore more personal), I would love some feedback.
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