Written before the Cardinal-Phillie playoff. The Cardinals lost.
This would be the post before the post mentioned in the first half of the title of this post. Now that you're completely confused you feel like I feel packing for a trip.
Like many, this topic, When to Ask Personal Questions, which will be the next post, did not come from nowhere. Yet it took an entire evening to figure out the source. It came from somewhere. But where? No idea. Why am I writing about this? More to the point, why am I
writing as FD speaks to me about the Cardinals and Albert Pujois, all very relevant and important to him, and he thinks I am listening, yet, entre nous, I am hearing but not comprehending. We humans don't parallel process conversations, and a conversation in your head is a conversation.
You've been there. Someone is talking to you at a wedding and you're listening, but another's conversation seems more interesting so you listen in on that, too, and in the process you totally lose track of the first and have to fake your way through. It is a bad feeling. Generally I wouldn't have minded faking but the joke is on me since this could have been educational. I never have understood how the playoffs work.
Still, I had already started the post. It is hard to stop. Writing is crack, you know.
My assumption is that you, dear reader, don't care where my ideas come from, and you assume that they are informed, that there's some proprietary knowledge backing me up. All true! It could be from having seen so many things so many times, or sure, from The Books, the digital library. Not remembering the source of the post niggled at me until. . . I remembered! It came to me in a dream! No, not true. It did not. I'd been reading a novel and a character, a very socially withdrawn, people-hating protagonist (sounds good, I know) is triggered to sheer loathing when people ask her personal questions.
Sorrow and Bliss, that's where I got the inspiration, thank you Meg Mason. Of course. Martha. Martha's personal space is precious to her. She hates people who poke at it. If I were to analyze Martha I'd find no end to the number of theories: fear of exposure, shame, paranoia, imposter syndrome, a fear that her answers either might be disingenuous or snarky, wishing to protect herself from re-traumatization. Or simply, My life is none of anyone's bees wax. Business.
We were leaving someone's lunch in the succah* on Monday afternoon and a friend that I've known for half my life told me with great sincerity how happy she is that we're seeing more of one another lately. We have a new friend, A. who loves to entertain and A. invites us and we accept because we like her. I try to get out of most invitations, just so you should know. Good reasons, all good reasons.
Oh, why not tell you. I decline invitations for lunch and dinner most of the time because sitting for hours at the table is painful, a pinched nerve thing, a condition that therapists or people who sit for a living probably all end up with eventually, which compels me in particular to stand much of the day, even at 'a dinner' which just looks weird. That or I use a special pillow, which begs explanation, or if it is in my own home, sit on a special chair. When people ask me why I do these things I want to kill them.
I tell this to my old friend, the one happy that we are seeing more of one another lately, and she acts as if that's all perfectly normal. I knew she would, which is why I told her all of that. Everyone needs a touch of validation sometimes. I also didn't want to have to invite her for dinner or be invited, so there you go.
I do not tell her that one day I will become a famous author having sold zillions of books on How to Manage your Sacro-Illiac (S-I), small fiber sensory neuropathy, the technical term, and not kill people who ask questions about it.
Joke! Nobody cares. There is no book.
Anyway, one of the things I do to manage pain is stand a lot and use a balance board to keep the circulation moving.
On the evening following the fast of Yom Kippur about a week ago I feel like blogging and start this post while FD mused about the St. Louis Cardinals. Usually he calls his brother to do this but on this particular night has chosen to tell me, which is a privilege, a joy, and a challenge for both of us. He tires of speaking to a confused partner and eventually drifts off to bed. At this point I am on the balance board blogging, winding down, hoping sleep will be possible. It isn't always after a fast. Eating breakfast after a fast (a real fast, no food or water for 25 hours) tells my body to rise and shine! Not go to sleep.
I tire of blogging and consider moving from Blogger to Word Press but the thought makes me tired so I head off to join FD in bed.
We get cozy with our little LCD reading lights worn proudly around our necks. Mine is pink, his is black.
I want to return two library books the next day, Meg Mason's Sorrow and Bliss and Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. But can only
I'm not sure I care enough to finish Dave's story. It is autobiographical but so long-winded that I keep wanting to say, Dave, who cares? But I feel badly for him so I skip about a hundred pages (he tells us we can! he even tells us which ones!) and read a bit of his heartbreaking work of staggering genius, which, yes, is a tongue and cheek title but a very wonderful character study and a sad story with a lot of frisbee.
Still, you should probably read it if stories about parent loss don't upset you too much, especially if you like how boys play. They are rough! They pound! They wrestle. They play frisbee. PLUS, you can skip those hundred pages and Dave doesn't care, a huge bonus. The book is new to me even though it was published twenty years ago. I returned it to the library at this writing so I can't tell you exactly the publishing date but am leaving on a jet plane tomorrow and haven't time to go googling such things. Anyway, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius reminds me very much of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest which put me into a depressive coma many years ago.
Not. But the potential, definitely there.
As much as I shy away from psychological fiction, especially biographical fiction about depression (not sure if Sorrow and Bliss is biographical) Meg Mason's sample on Amazon had me five pages in. Full disclosure, as much as I liked it, do avoid if you lean toward depression and your boundaries are poor.
Martha, protagonist of Sorrow and Bliss makes a decision not to have children. She is clearly brilliant and cannot suffer fools. She vets people hard, hates most everyone, even the ones she loves. She cannot speak to the unlucky soul who steps in that dog poop by asking her why she does not want-have children. Most people her age (30's) ask her this question.
That's the inspiration for that next post, When to Ask Personal Questions. I thought the inspiration interesting, but maybe the story is boring. Lately my kids tell me that the stories I tell them are not really very interesting (they are kind, do not say boring) and it surprises me so I introduce a story by saying, My kids don't think my stories very interesting lately but . . and then blather on.
I'll try to finish the real post on the plane, no guarantees. There is nothing like a flight, a new adventure (a different airline!) to derail a therapist.
Until then,
therapydoc
*succah Small hut built by Jews to celebrate the holiday Succot to recall Her protection as we circled around the wilderness after receiving the Torah before entering the Promised Land. You know the story.
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