The better and worse of 2021....

Better: Movie theaters being open, being able to finally go out with a group of people.

Worse: My job has become more difficult in just about eveyr possible way over 2021, and I think I'm going to need to leave in 2022, one way or another.

Better: Lots of new online friendships.

Worse: Not really any in-person friendships, other than some people here I met online that I occasionally see [and they are awesome people.]

Better: Got to see my family a couple of times.

Worse: Not really able to relate well to them, and my hometown has gotten really depressing to visit to where I don't think I want to do it anymore.

Better: Vaccinated and boosted.

Worse: Don't think we're ever really getting out of this. 2021 wasn't much better than 2020, and I don't expect 2022 to be any different.

Better: Lots of travel plans for 2022.

Worse: Not sure if they're going to actually happen....

So my mental state is a little better than last year at this time, probably because I'm able to go out more. I feel some dread at how my life may end up long term. I don't see much changing, but I suppose it still can. In the words of a great philosopher, maybe partying will help...

Artifice

I've recently become acquainted [okay, through Patreon] with a somewhat well-known podcaster. She mentioned today during a Zoom hangout that originally she had a division between her "podcast self" and her authentic self, but over the past couple of years she's taken down that wall and has let the listeners be more a part of her life [of course, a lot of her podcast has been her being super vulnerable about her life and past relationships.]

It caused me to wonder about the idea of what some call "masking," which I've pretty much used as a survival tactic for most of my life. I tend to feel like all my interactions with other people are a sort of act...not that I'm phony, but I have to say and do certain things to cause the social gears to move smoothly. Everything is a performance, even if it's a really bland performance, a plastic orange.

Not quitting yet.

Skippsed a month and a half. But I've been reading a lot and went to a book event yesterday. Finished several books lately---OUR COUNTRY FRIENDS by Gary Shteyngart. I saw him speak yesterday. It's the first novel that really deals with the world of 2020. He does it in a way where the pandemic doesn't dominate the novel---it's not solely about the pandemic but the characters are all living in our times. He said something interesting during his talk, he said basically anything written from now on that is set in contemporary times is going to be about the pandemic, comparing it to novels written during WWII. d Even if they weren't war novels, the war hung over them. It's a complicated novel, with a lot of characters and relationships, but I think he handles it admirably. He's been one of my favorite writers of the last decade, beginning with SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, then the memoir LITTLE FAILURE and his previous novel LAKE SUCCESS. I've also enjoyed his earlier work, ABSURDISTAN, though I don't think I've read his debut novel THE RUSSIAN DEBUTANTE'S HANDBOOK. He is very funny in person. I also enjoy his magazine writing, he had a recent piece in THE NEW YORKER about his botched cirumcision that caused a lot of consternation.

Willy Vlautin is a local writer whom I htink I first read during my Great Recession Book Binge that is chronicled in the early years of this blog. His most recent work THE NIGHT ALWAYS COMES, has a little too much in the way of Portland fan service [there seems to be a local reference in every other sentence.] But his stories catch like wildfire and just about everything I've read by him I've read in no more than a day or two. I just picked up a novel this afternoon from a couple of years ago, DON'T SKIP OUT ON ME which I think I'm probably going to finish tonight. He says he likes to write about broken people and that's what he does. I feel so bad for the characters but I can't wait to see what happens to them next.

I just finished BEWILDERMENT, the new Richard Powers novel, and it's probably one of the saddest things I've read in a while--I'm afraid that it may be our future.

As far as my own future, I don't really know what it holds. My job continues to be a source of unhappiness, and I'm looking elsewhere, but who knows what might happen. My personal life is becoming just wake up, work, read, look at stuff on my phone, go to bed. On weekends, more reading and looking at the phone. The book event was a rare outing, though I'm starting to go to the movies occasionally with a group of people, but I don't see much changing in my life. I'm a rock at the bottom of a stagnant pond.

Anne Tyler's improbable world

These days, I'm craving Anne Tyler novels. She's so very good at writing about people and families in flux. Her writing is comforting, but I wonder if some of her appeal is like the appeal of science fiction and fantasy. The familes and untethered people landing on solid ground are foreign to me, living in the world as I do. It's a balm, but it's also a world I don't know anything about. But I suppose even reptiles dream.

Busy season is over, but work is still not great and I am kind of looking. I'll look harder once my first year is up. Really don't want to move, though I need to probably stick with my current employer. I have golden handcuffs, though they are still a little loose.

Steeling myself for September

This will be my last free weekend for quite a while, I already know we will be working next weekend and mostly likely I won't be off again until October. At least I know what to expect this time. Right now I'm okay with it. I'm trying to be more like one of my slacker coworkers who seems to not really care about work performance.

I applied for a remote job, I'll probably pull the trigger if there's interest and the pay is sufficient. I'd stay here a while longer then maybe go elsewhere eventually, even if just elsewhere in this state where I could maybe get away from apartment living. I miss having more space between myself and others. Sometimes I think that's one of the things that bothers me most, that I'm back to the lifestyle of 25 years ago.

Feeling better momentarily, but I know last year I began slipping into a funk around this time that i never entirely got out of, so here we are again. No smoke in the air at least, for right now. I don't get out much anymore at this point, have lost interest. Keep thinking, is this it? I'm starting to think of everything in past tense. I'm at least sleeping better....

The Dream Life

I haven't remembered my dreams much over this past year or so. I seem to get the bare minimum amount of sleep necessary to function, but only lately have I felt rested and slept deeply enough to remember many of my dreams. My dream life has not yet caught up to my real one. I still am married in my dreams, and make decisions based on how they'll affect both of us, worrying about things that my spouse probably won't like or agree with. Speaking of which, we are approaching the one year anniversary of my divorce being final.

I'm curious how long it will be before my dreams catch up to reality, before they will start to reflect the world I'm in now. My cell phone is pretty common in my dreams at this point, I don't know how many times I've dreamt about posting to Instagram or Facebook. It stands to reason that eventually my relaitonship status would make its way to my subconscious.

I did dream about someone I dated at the beginning of the year and with whom things ended badly, but thankfully ended just the same[bullet dodged.] I really told them off in my dream, so in that sense I guess I got closure. That is a common theme when I do remember my dreams, being able to really let loose and tell someone what I really think. Maybe it's something i should emulate in real life...

Seven squared.

I am now seven squared years old.

The world seems to be getting more busy, and I am trying to keep up with it. I miss the days of 2020 when streets were quiet. Keep going back to that thought---what if I end up hating the normal version of this city? What I preferred everything to be closed? I like when people keep their distance from you when you walk past them. I often still do that. I hate the new variant, but I am starting to put the mask on again and avoid certain events.

I'm in a long distance relationship now and it's so much better than being with someone all the time. I will always need my own space, some separate parts of my life. I like the novelty and excitement of not seeing one another very often and wanting to treasure the days. I still feel not quite fully ready, but I've learned if you wait for the perfect time to do something, that moment never arrives.

I'm most happy about the library being open, and having a pile of books again. I have a pile of books I currently own, but it's just not the same. I also still buy books frequently.

My job is not great, and I'm not sure if I can do it long term. I can if I quit caring. I think that's how government workers end up the way they do.

"I am here, and you are where you are..."

Still mourning the old life while trying to start the new one often doesn't feel like living at all. I have flareups of regret. What happened I guess was inevitable, but still feels like I could have done something different. Maybe it's karma. But I'm going to try as hard as I can to make a life....

So many books....

I have about four books going right now, and was happy that the library allowed me to renew all of them because otherwise I'll never finish. Red Comet: The Short Life and Amazing Art of Sylvia Plath--about 500 pages in...just over halfway since the main content of the book is just over 900 pages. I neither like nor dislike Plath, though I'm interested in reading her again. I've found that I often enjoy biographies of artists and writers when I'm not particularly connected to their work, if they're interesting enough or if the writing is compelling. This is both.

Also reading a book about the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey which I'm struggling to put down, and which is part of the reason why I'm so behind on all the others.

Reading the new Louise Erdrich and that one is a little tougher going, but I'm glad at least it's about Natives in the 20th century. Not bad, I just don't have as strong a drive to read it.

I have a complicated relationship with my Native heritage. I look white and have white privilege. My Nativeness is a citizenship status and not an ethnicity. It's the biggest cliche there is, but I don't fit in either world. I used to somewhat disavow my Nativeness because it seemed like a more rebellious thing to do that. Indian stuff was like church, school, and family duties--something you were supposed to do and care about. Then I went through a period where I embraced it more, but it just seemed silly to me. So many people from my tribe in particular try to overcompensate for not "looking Indian" by driving around with a hundred dream catchers or attending every pow wow there is. The most ridiculous thing I ever saw was a bunch of my fellow "white Natives" trying to do a stomp dance in a conference center classroom. It reminded me of the hobbyist pow wows you have in Europe, where everyone is "playing Indian." I also got tired of all the political infighting on social media to where I unfollowed almost all of the different Native media figures and stopped participating. I vote in tribal elections and follow the news, but am not really interested in getting any more involved in that. I'm proud of where I came from, but I feel like parading around all the photos of ancestors and everything is like I'm trying to show some kind of status symbol. "See, I'm not really a lame white person....look at my great grandfather!" At the same time, I'm interested in learning the language, just to try to help preserve it even if it's doubtful I would ever use it organicially. But I've never really felt welcome among my fellow Natives--lots of gatekeeping and judging. So I continue to remain outside of it for the most part.

A disturbing what if....

What if we come out of the pandemic, things get back to normal, and it turns out that I hate living here? That I liked the way things were in 2020?

Doing some traveling over these next few months. One thing I keep noticing is that I am happy to get out of here for a while. Some of that may just be that I find my apartment and my neighborhood tiresome, and no longer get much from the other places I frequent. It's a conundrum.

I notice it's hard to read now. One of my friends has said reading is like the canary in the coalmine for them, that when they can't get into reading they know something is really wrong. I wonder if that's the same for me, or if it's just that I'm on my phone too damn much.

One year

One year ago today, I left the life I knew to come here. I won't lie, it's been hard. It helps though that there is no old life to go back to. This is all that there is. The house I lived in has been rented to someone else. I'm divorced from the person to whom I was married. I have a completely different job and live in a different city. I don't even look the same as I did, to where I don't know if the ID photo I had at the time would even be usable at an airport.

Whether it's been worth it or not remains to be seen. I'm happier in some ways, though I know I have developed unhealthy habits. I've decided to isolate myself from in-person contact for a time. I have things to do, things to write, etc. I don't have the bandwith for in-person contact, with its many demands.

I miss my old life, but it's like missing a bygone era that no longer exists. The creative life, that's the only thing that means anything to me these days.

The Solo Act

This past weekend I went on a vacation alone for the first time in nearly 20 years, to the coast here. I enjoy traveling alone--I like setting my own schedule and doing whatever I care to do. Dining alone is something that doesn't really bother me, though I will say when you're going out with someone else it feels a bit more normalizing as far as fitting in with other people. You also don't have to worry about someone grabbing your table/seat while you're gone, something that has happened to me before.

I spent most of my time walking around, looking at the ocean, and drinking beer. Went to a more touristy area later and didn't like it as much, though I had fun playing this odd skeeball/bingo hybrid called Fascination. I still feel sad sometimes, but it's more of a baseline of sadness that doesn't draw attention to itself. Sadness as an ongoing condition, like eye color or the shape of one's nose.

My father-in-law, about whom I wrote in the early days of this blog, passed away ten years ago today. We did not often get along, but I was glad that I was able to make things right with him in his final days. He had flaws, but was a good soul, and was a better man than I could ever hope of being.

Larry McMurtry, (1936-2021)

Even when you know it's coming, it's always tough to cope with the death of an artist you cared about. As I wrote about previously, I started reading Larry McMurtry in high school, and he's one of the few authors from back then that I continue to read as I head into late middle age. I used to idenfity with his younger characters, and then his somewhat older ones...often the same characters in different books. Although he is better known for Lonesome Dove and the other Westerns, I seldom read those. I've written about the Thalia cycle, and another of my favorites is All of My Friends Are Going to be Strangers. His three book memoir about book dealing, screenwriting, and novel writing are gems. I am sad that he is gone, though I'd had difficult with his later work. But it is sad when you know that a body of work has come to an end, that there is a limit to the number of works out there.

Reading MOVING ON, which is like his contemporary version of LONESOME DOVE in that it's a very long book. In his preface he writes about how he couldn't come up with a title and initally named it after its main character, Patsy Carpenter, but the publisher wouldn't go for it. I am looking forward to revisiting it in the coming days, it's one that I haven't read since college, and might appreciate it more now that I've been married/divorced.

"I'm transforming, I'm vibrating...."

I am not the same person I was a year ago, and not just in the obvious ways [being married, living in a different city, with a different job...] I do miss my old life, my old home, the ease of my marriage even if it ultimately didn't work out.

Life is better in many ways. I don't have as many worries, and feel good about the future regardless of some of the things I'm dealing with at the moment. I think I'm through the miserable winter, and am hopeful next time will be better.

But as so often has been the case, I often feel my happiness is a delicate balance and the slightest setback could send me into despondency yet again. Hopefully I am learning and adapting. Several online acquaintances have gone through divorce fairly recently and my only advice is to eventually try to view it as an opportunity for growth and transformation. Early on, this will likely be impossible, but once an equilibrium is found---do something you've wanted to do but didn't think you could. Try something you haven't before. Run with a different crowd, or maybe no crowd at all. Become a stranger to yourself.

Hunger is the best sauce

My [now ex] mother-in-law had a saying, “Hunger is the best sauce.” The sense of need, of lack, makes everything taste better. I had no electricity for most of the past week. All I could think of was how much I would enjoy things when the power came back on. My neighbors had all left after the first day or so without power. I had candles which had a overpowering floral scent that made my apartment smell like a grandmother’s house. My next door neighbor came by to check on his place and asked how I was doing, but was giving me a wide berth. I probably looked a little crazed. Someone who goes without heat and light for four days in winter might be capable of anything.

Without meaning to, I’ve developed a practice about many physical comforts, where denying them for a short while makes me appreciate them more. I am that way a lot about food, and heat/cooling. Heat feels wonderful when you’ve been very cold, but is not that remarkable if it is on regularly, even in winter. I tend to skip meals often, in order to more fully enjoy the meals that I do eat, and of course the benefit of weight loss. I freely admit to not having the healthiest relationship with food, and struggle with putting too many psychological associations on it. I often enjoy making myself uncomfortable in order to better enjoy it when the period of discomfort is lifted.

My electricity returned in time for the weekend. I was out walking, trying to see if there were any work trucks in my neighborhood. Seeing none, I began to despair, but then saw that a traffic light that had been out for days was now working. As I grew closer to my apartment, I saw more lights on. When I opened my door, I returned to the 21st century. Today I replenished the food I’d had to throw in the trash, though I noticed myself being hesitant to buy too many perishable items. I wonder if I will always be skeptical about electricity from now on, always assuming it could be taken away again at any moment. Perhaps that’s not the worst way to be. Earlier in the week, I was walking to an emergency warming center that had electricity to get some work done on my laptop. As I walked, I saw everything closed for blocks…gas stations not working, traffic lights out, businesses closed. I felt as if I was in the prologue of a dystopian film or novel, like The Road. Perhaps this was an early glimpse of the future.

Stillness.

It snowed and it's the first time I've lived someplace with snow for about 5-6 years Thankfully, no need to get out in it unless I want to. Three day weekend but I'm stuck at home due to the weather and transit being shut down. Hopefully by Monday I might able to at least go somewhere else.
I often feel like a fugue took place in 2003 and I woke in 2020 in another state, older, with a different job. "I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again..." My ex used to work in a nursing home and often spoke in horror about a patient who suddenly had a psychotic break one day and no longer recognized his family. I don't feel like the same person I was a year ago, for good and for bad. There's one good thing about being alone, there's no one to define you. It's easier to write your own story, wahtever that might be. Not that I write much these days.

I need to view this weekend as an opportunity to just be still, and think, and decide what's valauble, and how I want to write my story going forward.

Reinventing the wheel would be an improvement....

My workplace woes continue. I've been there almost 10 months now, and don't feel much more capable than I was on my first day. Still not too clear about most of my duties. Sometimes it feels like some really boring, unamusing game at a party that you never wanted to attend. I need to do X, I'm told to do Y, only find that doesn't work, so I need to try to find the name of anothr type of report from this other person, who responds after a few hours. But in the end, I'm still not sure how the report helps with my objective. I would say we re-invent the wheel every day, but that's giving way too much credit since having a wheel would actually be useful. This is more like trying to understand the concept of shapes everyday and choosing a rhombus.

Longtime readers [if any exist] know this is not a new problem for me, and it makes me think of the saying about how if you run into one asshole, you ran into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day long the asshole is you. If you continue having issues getting started in job after job, and having communication issues with your boss, maybe the problem lies with me.

I've enjoyed a couple of my jobs since changing careers---I enjoyed working at the medical clinic in Oklahoma though I had a similar case where I never quite understood some of the things I was supposed to be doing. And I liked my job at the nonprofit, though I had similar issues with a noncommunicative boss. But I felt like I was supporting valuable work, and felt like I knew what I was doing at least half of the time. Since I had to leave the nonprofit a few years ago, it's just been a lot of uncertainty. I think I was happiest in my first full time job after college, as a data entry clerk for the Post Office. I'm lucky that I've been able to return to the federal system, so I should be in a position to retire in not too long now. But it's weird to be heading into the last decade or so of my career and to still feel so unsure of myself, and still trying to find my footing.

Looking at the bright side.

Valentine's Day is just another day again! Seriously, I do try to list the things that I no longer have to worry about now, though they have been replaced by other worries. Feel like there are so many things I need to do these days, but I try to just do what I can, even though that isn't much. Sometimes the main goal for the day is to do the dishes. To just go outside and walk for a while. To read [I'm still finding reading difficult, which greatly saddens me.] Work remains unsatisfying. I'm starting to think it won't get better. I haven't even been here a year and I'm already in a rut.

Deadly tedium....

It's winter now, and I'm still adjusting to it. The days are getting longer, thankfully. I try to remember to use a light therapy lamp half an hour a day. It's pretty cold and I often don't care to walk or go places like I used to. Which means staying in my apartment, which I don't really like. I still try to go out at least once or twice a week, though nothing like I was doing during summer and fall.

I don't really have an end goal anymore. Retirement, I guess. I feel like much of my life has been poorly spent, I guess that's a common thing to feel at this age. Trying therapy again soon. We'll see. Gotta keep moving. I hope the weather starts warming up in a month or two.

One of the hallmark signs of depression is losing interest in things you were once excited about, and I can say that's true. I have trouble reading. A lot of the online communities I enjoyed earlier this year have lost their appeal to me. I'm not really interested in exploring the city or even in going to many of the places I used to enjoy. I've kind of lost interest in going out and drinking. I can sometimes do passive activites like watching something online, but even then I often lose interest in shows. I tend to favor older movies these days just because they aren't so long.

I'm less fearful about 2021 after today, but really wonder what the year will bring.