Well, I got another job, meaning I am now employed at three places. Working one day a week at one and zero days a week at the other wasn't cutting it. I don't know about this new place. It's a night club, a real dance club -night club sort of place, where the music is loud and everything is dark and blacklit. Does this mean I'm a "real" bartender now?
Oh sigh. I have much I want to say and not the will or energy to get the words out. More later, I suppose.
I had forgotten what a night alone feels like.
It's free and peaceful. I can do completely as I please! What an unheard of luxury!
I had forgotten the price, the scary and overwhelming vastness of the empty space. It's too quiet, too big, too aimless. There's...nothing...here. And there's this nagging feeling of loneliness, sadness. It's a bit disorienting, too. All of the sudden the world is gone, as brash and noisy as several televisions on competing channels-- suddenly they all flick off. It's just black, and wholly silent.
SHEEP!
Pepsi tastes better than Coke!
"When he isn't pondering the inner workings of the mind, Read Montague, a 43-year-old neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, has been known to contemplate the other mysteries of life: for instance, the Pepsi Challenge. In the series of TV commercials from the 70's and 80's that pitted Coke against Pepsi in a blind taste test, Pepsi was usually the winner. So why, Montague asked himself not long ago, did Coke appeal so strongly to so many people if it didn't taste any better?
Over several months this past summer, Montague set to work looking for a scientifically convincing answer. He assembled a group of test subjects and, while monitoring their brain activity with an M.R.I. machine, recreated the Pepsi Challenge. His results confirmed those of the TV campaign: Pepsi tended to produce a stronger response than Coke in the brain's ventral putamen, a region thought to process feelings of reward. (Monkeys, for instance, exhibit activity in the ventral putamen when they receive food for completing a task.) Indeed, in people who preferred Pepsi, the ventral putamen was five times as active when drinking Pepsi than that of Coke fans when drinking Coke.
. . . So Montague tried to gauge the appeal of Coke's image, its ''brand influence,'' by repeating the experiment with a small variation: this time, he announced which of the sample tastes were Coke. The outcome was remarkable: almost all the subjects said they preferred Coke. What's more, the brain activity of the subjects was now different. There was also activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that scientists say governs high-level cognitive powers. Apparently, the subjects were meditating in a more sophisticated way on the taste of Coke, allowing memories and other impressions of the drink -- in a word, its brand -- to shape their preference."
--"There's a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex"
By Clive Thompson
Published: October 26, 2003
The New York Times
(emphasis mine)
Parent-teacher conferences this evening, the first of the year with the new teachers. I'm mostly satisfied. Both girls either "consistantly demonstrate"/are at grade level (mostly) or "show notable strength"/are above grade level in everything. Good readers, writers, spellers, mathmaticians, great social skills, no problems, except that MB occasionally gets silly has to be "shh!"ed.
My life is way too often way too overwhelming.
I just can't do all this stuff.
And then I think, I could, I could, I bet other people could, it's just me, I could do it all if I were only b e t t e r. . .
Spoke with my boss who acts as if I'm in no danger of losing my job. But then, he and my place of employment are known, by those in the know, of being dubious, deceitful, underhanded and chicken#hitted. I think it best to look for yet another "second" job.
The New Guy and I went to see a play, The Grapes of Wrath, at my university this evening. I've been wanting for literally years to go see a play there, so I'm overjoyed. We ended up with front row seats and a backstage "tour". A very lovely evening with which I am well-pleased.
"Hey. I'm just calling to let you know that I was talking to [name] from Spikers and he said tomorrow at the meeting that they were going to lay some people off... they were laying off, like, five people...he mentioned your name. Thought I'd just let you know. Sorry. Thought you'd want to know beforehand."
--message on my phone from a friend
And thus here I sit at 2am, unable to sleep, even though the New Guy did a fine job of comforting me (oh, to be wrapped in somebody's arms and care!) and despite my tiredness and OTC sleeping pill. I tried to quiet my mind, am trying not to be upset until loss of job is a fact, but I can't sleep.
Trying very hard to not scream in panic, "What am I going to do?!?!"
The New Guy and I are up before the sun, a feat for us both, in order to take a four hour road trip to the "War Eagle Mill Arts and Crafts Fair", which he affectionately refers to simply as War Eagle. Going is an important yearly tradition for him and I am both very excited and flattered to be going with him.
A horribly rough, unfinished draft. Handwritten scribbles in my notebook of March 15, 2:13am:
Damn doubts! Are they ugly stones of impediment or are they the guidesigns of sages? I only know they're back again. I can hear them but I don't know that I should.
Why the paint peels on nights like these I don't know, but my old coated disgust for alcohol is exposed. Didn't I change, leaving that behind? In some ways I'm glad my dad's an alcoholic, that I've seen him passed out alone night upon night. I've seen his trash can grow full with beer cans while his wallet and life grew empty. We both grew up, Dad to admit the regret that is his, too painful to hold. I'm sorry I gave my life to alcohol, he said, and missed out on yours. Deceiving controlling demon. I wish, I wish, he says as he takes a sip. I'm sorry.
I'm glad because I've seen under the mask of alcohol long ago, a terrifying boogeyman who dwelled in the workship by day and the living room by night. It ate my daddy.
There's more than one reason why I ran from alcohol the first 24 years of my life, more than one reason preventing me from establishing a real relationship with it. Its gargantuan claims, brightly boasted billboard, my skeptic eyes judge contrived. Its charm sometimes fails to strike me, landing off center.
I don't know why I drink sometimes. I do. I find myself violating the self-protective terms of agreement I made with alcohol, forgetting that it never signed.
(unfinished)
In chat today with my best friend:
me: He's been pretty wonderful lately, actually.
her: But there's still something bugging you.
me: Yeah, and I'm not sure what.
her: Well, I can tell you at least partially what it is.
me: What?
her: Well, ever since you split with [ex-husband], you have completely defined yourself by having a man in your life, and in so doing, have defined yourself BY the man IN your life at the time. And since obviously none of them are your male equivalent, it leaves you unsatisfied.
IMHO, you just need to work on being OK with YOU, and ONLY you.
You have not been really single since you and [ex-husband] split. First [guy], then [Texas guy], and now [New Guy]. And because you are the way you are (and there's nothing inherently WRONG with this, per se), you spend all your energy on the other person. When is it time for you?
Every now and then, it really is OK to go first at the church picnic.
But until you find your own self worthy, I don't think you'll find anyone who is worthy OF you.
I've been avoiding writing a new entry, partially because I just didn't feel like it, partially because I've been busy, partially because I felt pressured to write something significant on what has just been both my 26th birthday and the one year anniversary of my blog. The "significant" entry may wait until I read my blog from beginning to present, something I've never done. For now, it just feels like the first night in quite some time I could take a deep breath. No guests, no kids, just me and the New Guy.
He came up October 3rd and we're finally having a night alone. Oh, and did I mention he brought all his stuff?
I've never had a birthday party before. At least, not the grown-up kind. I was completely opposed to alcohol and never tasted it until my 23rd birthday. Anyway, suddenly I find myself with more than eight people coming over Saturday, two of whom have enough tension between them to be barred from being in a room together. Two are former marines, two I have a lot of negative history with, two are still teenagers, one of them is flying in, and I'm not even telling you all of it... it's utterly insane. I don't even know how to throw a party, and I don't have the time or money to try. I just invited everyone over. You're invited, too. Just let me know you're coming and bring something if you can.
