Teel McClanahan

Twenty thousand words isn’t so hard.

Frankly, I should be sleeping or writing or … something. Writing fiction or poetry or code. Not writing this. Not rambling about my own tired life. Not watching my QAF DVDs in the middle of the night.

I watched all of Season 1 last week, and I’ve just started in on Season 2. Season 3 is out on DVD now and … well, if Zia gets a used copy of Season 3 in and I also have the extra money for it before they stop holding it for me, I’ll watch that for the first time then. Though I do also have Season 3 on my Netflix queue a couple dozen discs in, depending upon how things go. I’m torn, actually. On one hand I want to take my Season 1 and Season 2 discs to Zia and trade them for … well, there’s almost always something I want at Zia. I’m also going to be spending some time going through all my CDs and DVDs at length and putting together a set of things to try to trade in at Zia.

Sigh. I think I’ll go work on that right now, while Season 2 Disc 1 runs itself out. Maybe start Disc 2 if I’m not tired in half an hour.

UPDATE@5:44AM : I’m just about to be half-way through Disc 2, I’ve sorted out … a lot of CDs and a few DVDs to … deal with. The plan, the current plan, the one that goes against certain of my ideals but sits fine with my financial situation, is to rip all the CDs to AAC files and drop them onto a couple of DVDs and off my HD before I try to trade them into Zia. You know, in case I decide later I want to hear one or two of the songs on these albums. Looking back at these stacks, I bought a lot of these albums for one good song or … in many cases because I liked one or two or three songs on another album the band did and have no idea what’s on other albums but I bought everything the band did. And I don’t need that.

So, there we go.

And here I go. Off to bed. I’ll start ripping tomorrow, I suppose. ‘night.

I keep getting emails from eHarmony. Better and better deals. More and more matches. Emails telling me I might be missing out on finding my soul mate.

And then I look around at my website, my friends’ websites, and I should say something, write something… I have friends… I don’t even know what to say. To say to them, or … to myself, even, or here, about them. ANd I should say something. I care about them and they’re not doing great and they’re facing ongoing health problems and personal tragedy and … And I just don’t know what to say. And everyone else just gives up quick and brief condolences. They offer their ‘sympathy’ and ask if things are okay. Things aren’t okay. Things couldn’t be okay. In fact, every time I hear an update it seems like things aren’t getting any better. More infections, more surgeries, more grief. More loss, more pain. And I don’t know what to say. Nothing I can think of seems … right. Nothing I can think of seems like it would be enough, or would help at all or even … express how I actually feel. I can’t … I’m afraid of even trying to open communication … what is there to say?

This isn’t something I can relate to.

This isn’t within the realm of my experience.

I am not the member of a happy couple, I don’t have a soul mate that stands by me even in my darkest hour. I don’t have someone to try to create a family with, I never have. I don’t have someone who needs me, needs my support and love. I don’t know what it feels like to be loved that way, to love that way. I don’t know what it feels like to have someone … to love someone … in sickness and in health … and know they share that with me. I have never been there. I don’t know what it’s like. I don’t know …

I don’t know what to say.

I don’t know how I could say anything meaningful to someone who found themselves facing some of the hardest parts, the sickness, the money trouble, the loss and grief and all at once, being in the middle of such pain and never once flinching away, never doubting that they’re with the right partner, that they’re living their lives in love and would never look away… What more could I say to them that her hand in his, his heart in hers… doesn’t already say?

I’m not there with you. I don’t know how you feel, I can’t sympathize, it isn’t possible for me. I can’t say something that will make you feel better. I don’t even know anything that will make you feel better.

Just work through it the way I have faith you will, in love. I know you know this isn’t the end. I know you’re trying to keep an eye on the bright side, and there’s nothing I need to say to make you do that.

I feel useless.

I feel worthless.

I feel bad for their loss, their illness, their pain. And I feel bad for my own inability to sympathize. I feel bad that I’m alone. That I don’t know how they’re getting through this because I’ve never known the union they share. And then, on top of that, I feel bad for feeling bad about my own life in their time of loss and need.

I’m so selfish and inept.

I should probably be sleeping. Fuck, I should probably have camped out in Phoenix one more night and gone shopping at Sam’s Club in the morning. I just got back a while ago from a short trip to Phoenix. Went down Thursday mid-day, did all the shopping dad needed done except the Sam’s Club shopping, since it included perishables, and then went to the house. Went to a free screening of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie which I recommend and will either post about or write a review about or just … sit and think about… soon and for a while… with Heath and two of his girl-friends. Got some nice souveneirs by answering some movie trivia. Went to Marie’s to pick up some art supplies she’d rescued for me and hung out for a while. Slept. Got up, met Art at AZ Mills to watch Dawn of the Dead, an excellent zombie movie. Did a little shopping, got a bath mat and some new pajamas and some sandals (that reminds me to update my Wants list on the right there), drove over to Centerpoint. My brain mis-calculated on time, I thought I had more than I did, so we watched Taking Lives (a pretty good movie, though since I identify most strongly with smart serial killers in this sort of movie, the end felt un-needed and tacked-on) and I didn’t have time to wander around Centerpoint and see what’s changed or even to go look at all the stuff I can’t afford to buy at Zia’s in Tempe. We returned to the north side of town and spent an hour trying to get a letter from Heath’s church… I won’t explain the whole thing, but … they’ve been saying they’d send the letter for weeks, they said they’d mail it, fax it, re-fax it, and then Thursday I took Heath to see his youth-pastor about it, and the youth-pastor said he would write the letter and have it for us, but then he didn’t and the woman who said she’d done it and mailed it and faxed it twice didn’t have it at all or remember it at all and … anyway, we did get it, great, but that took an hour I wasn’t planning on spending on that. Then back to the house to pick up our stuff and head over to Sam’s Club which, based on the best information I have, closes at 9. I know I’m running late, but we get there at about 8:37PM knowing exactly what we need and that we should be able to get it and get out well before closing. Except that when we get there we learn that they close, apparently, at 8:30. So now a short list with a couple of fairly important items on it does not end up fulfilled and in the car. So I stop by WalMart next door to pick up a couple of things (pens, paper, a sandwich for supper) and after eating we get on the road. And then a little while after I’d been here I realized that there isn’t anything pressing for me to do in the morning, or for Heath, we could have stayed another night, just gone back to the house and slept … or gone out, even and had a good time … and gone to Sam’s Club in the morning, got the stuff, and come home… possibly before I’ll even wake up tomorrow morning, at this rate. It was a mistake. I know this.

A mistake on a mistake on a mistake.

I’m not perfect. I know this. Sometimes things go wrong. This is life.

My little problems are nothing.

Didn’t pick up some items. Didn’t figure out to stay in town. Spent too much money. Whatever. My little problems are nothing.

Some friends of mine lost a pregnancy two nights ago, are unemployed, and are still facing health problems I’ve never really experienced the like of personally.

Every week at bible study during prayer requests I hear stories about people who have real problems. I don’t have ‘real’ problems. The closest thing I have to a ‘real’ problem is that in a month or so, if my furniture doesn’t start selling, I may have some trouble paying all my bills. In a day or a week or a month or a year my grandmother and/or grandfather may pass away. I need around $1200 in dental repairs. (Not cosmetic, this is $1200 in complicated fillings.) I’m not getting as much writing or furniture-building done as I’d like, and my creative endeavors aren’t producing as much income as I’d like, yet. I’m not sick. I haven’t got a mortgage or car payments to pay or face losing my home and transportation. I haven’t just lost a loved-one unexpectedly. I don’t have an ill spouse. No divorce, no death, no moving or getting or losing a job or jobs, no starving or even just ‘going without’ once in a while. My problems are not … They’re not ‘real’ problems.

I’m not asking for problems. I’m glad I don’t have real problems. Most of the time, my cavities don’t even hurt, and I’ve never paid a debt payment late, and I’ve just had a year more than anyone expected with my grandparents alive and I might be about to have another. And at least I’ve got the time and resources to write and at least try to follow my dreams. And there’s food on the table and wood in the stove at night (well, I haven’t built a fire tonight, despite the cold, because I keep thinking I’ll be climbing under my electric blanket any minute now) and all of a sudden satellite TV in addition to all my other entertainment options. What have I really got to complain about or even really be upset about?

…

So why am I so stressed out and upset and depressed and feel like complaining … or at least writing about all the little things that go wrong, all the mistakes I make or problems I have, no matter how insignificant or minor?

Why can’t I just … feel good? Focus on all the good things? Write about the beautiful and wonderful and easy things in my life? Be happy with what I have? Work hard for what I want, and be satisfied with the work?

I’m behind on words… I’ve been away from my home, my computer, but I haven’t stopped thinking, feeling, having things to say and emotions to express.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a beautiful and touching and engaging and romantic and emotional and gripping film that … that just made me feel bad in the end. It’s a beautiful movie about the power of love that made me wish I had someone to love that way. Made me wish there was a love in my life, just to create the possibility of such an intense display of the life-altering power of love. I’ll… I’ll probably write at length about it … soon-ish.

I’m going to go try to sleep.

I think I’ve decided to add “Eat a cow” to my list of things to do.

Yes, it’s a sort of longer-term goal, something to do … later in life. When I have more leisure and leisure money.

To clarify, I want to eat the entire cow, every edible part of it (save potentially dangerous tissues such as brain and nerve tissue), the whole cow.

In fact, thinking about it, I think I’d like to raise (or pay someone else to raise) the cow myself. Know it from birth to death, then eat it from tip to tail.

An entire cow.

Delicious.