Posted by Ritch on March 17, 2002, at 2:37:11
In reply to train, wreck, posted by trouble on March 17, 2002, at 0:07:32
> Hey all,
>
> I feel like I want to cry, which I rarely do. An old professor told me crying is a good thing, it means a change is about to come. Then he left me.
>
> It seems everything becomes apparent at once, tho I know nothing does until you're ready to face it, but there's just so much I don't want to know.
>
> But today was a good day, I'm getting my memory back, no major mistakes for the first time in weeks. Thanks to Mark and Cam W. for the Wellbutrin red flag.
>
> The major, killing problem is still this entrenched chaos and anxiety I get around people I'm cleaning and today I was becoming agitated, misplacing things, running my hands thru my hair, walking in circles w/ disturbed looks on my face and I knew it was just abundant and superficial confusion b/c I needed to write down a few lines. So I did. Then the client comes home, goes into the kitchen to get a beer and says what are you doing, and at first I tried to ignore him, then I took a deep breath and said in this tiny, halting, eggshell tone that well, I am an artist and I needed to take a time-out to create my art.
> And he goes, "So, you're making me a list?"
> Right you son of a bitch, you need ajax and paper towels and 409 and HE WASN'T EVEN LISTENING TO ME! That's a paddlin. A Bad Game. But it was too funny to get mad about. He was just making conversation, I guess, but I thought he was asking me to explain myself. I wish everyone just made conversation.
>
> Otherwise I don't know if this new sincerity is going to work. If you want to live your life w/out conforming to established norms, and still like yourself I don't see how you can do this w/out being a prick. But being a prick makes you not like yourself worse. You have to come up w/some way to help people out. But the reassurance has to be swift and subtle, w/out calling attentionn to itself. Unfamiliarity creates arousal in rich people, and I don't want to arouse anyone, rich or poor over bullshit. If they only had some place they could put me, a slot, we could be done w/it and go about our separate business. I'm always going to be a thought-disordered freak, so I figure instead of being nebulous and undefined, I'd throw my lot in w/ the bohemians so then the mundanes can go oh she's just one of those harmles, free-spirited deluded "artists" Austin is so famous for. And all the scrutiny and suspicion will come to an end. Does this make sense?
>
> But it's no good, we're back to the same problem, right back to stratification. I saw some fresh ideas on that this week, things I'd never seen before, I took notes somewhere, under all these papers and bills and shit. You know what? FUCK stratification. Atlas shrugged, you know? Who cares? My economics professor would care. I'm always beholden to my teachers since I'm the star pupil, in every class teachers pet but that's just b/c no one else in the room takes their ideas seriously. They say I'm the kind of student that makes their job worthwhile and I'm the best student they ever had. The crying professor I mentioned, when I told him I'd read his thesis he said "Even I didn't do that." They never really talk about the quality of my thinking, except to say you lost me trouble sit down have a seat lets look at your notes. I guess that's ok, they want to hone my cognition to a steel blade. But you'd think the star pupil would get back a few papers w/excited red penmanship screaming across the top, something along the lines of MY GOD, TROUBLE! WHAT AN IMPOSING EDIFICE OF THOUGHT IS THIS!!!
> I have some nice replies here though, I looked at all of them Thursday, but now they seem too nice, seeing the word "sensitive" here and there,
> "What a SENSITIVE interpretation of the Pythagorean Theory, Ms.Plan I nearly wept. I showed that to an ex-boyfriend once and he grew pensive. Now I know why.
> Star spelled backwards spells rats professor. Pathetic Rats Student, I don't want to know this but it's right in front of me, all the attention they give me for nothin, just hoping I'll learn someday how to fight my way out of a wet paper bag.
> Isn't it poignant... I wouldn't have these dilapadated mental processes if I wasn't so intelligent. Why would I be such a hound for data if I was incapable of understanding it? But papers or no, in the long run all I have is my own intellect and that means it's on me to get rid of this stratification. We didn't have this where I grew up, everyone in my neighborhood had ONE bathroom, anyone w/2 bathrooms in their house meant they were loaded. I cleaned a house w/5 bathrooms last week. Ever since the economy went down the toilet most of my clients have been filthy rich, I'm around them too much, but I no longer hate them. I've gone through most of their portfolios and my economics professor was right, the elite do siphon off an impressive chunk of their income into philanthropic and charitable concerns. I'm sure they're as conflicted about economic inequality as they can comfortably be. I'm a white woman working in white womens houses, I can't imagine what it would be like if I was Hispanic and spoke broken English. It seems my biggest problem is all this self-esteem, I'm not servile and I do laugh at their reading material, but I'm circumspect about it. I know words like circumspect, otherwise they'd probably have me hanged. They can do that you know. It wouldn't be the first time.
> But even I, paradigm of self-worth spent my February days calling expensive etiquette schools, just trying to make the best of a bad situation. But that's not me. What would Jesus do? Blow His Top, I bet, what a mouth that man had on Him.
> I wish Lou was here. Sometimes I think Lou Pilder's a genius, and the whole Dr.Bob Crown of Life thing is just his vehicle for teaching us the only truly pertinent lesson in life. Don't ask me what that might be. I'm not an oracle, but I play one on PB.
>
>
> This seems like a good time to close w/ my version of the heartfelt declamation some of you have been waiting for. I think waiting is a beautiful thing. If you don't understand that statement it boils down to the question, what are you going to do with it?
> There's been talk concerning my big personality and manner of speaking, they've been cited for ambiguity, for being loathsome and disturbing, it's been said that I have put my psychosis on fellow members and that I need to apologize for it.
> I apologize for putting my psychosis on fellow board members. Nobody here is trying to go backwards, if I've contributed to that in anyone it wasn't be design. My mental problems are probably real and they're probably going to be with me awhile. I've never denied being a fuckin nut. The ambition and ambiguity will most likely stick as well. What to do, what to do...
> I'm a firm believer that offense is in the taking, and luck be with us, you can take me or leave me. There's sure to be another train wreck just down the road.
>
>
> love,
> troubleTrouble, I appreciate your insights working for the "ruling class". Given your personal experience and intuition, do they feel alienated from the rest of society and *wish* they didn't feel so alienated, or can they "afford" to be apathetic? What is the skinny on how they feel about the world? Have you ever had what you considered to be a genuine conversation with *one* who spilled their guts about how they relate to the rest of the world and how it troubles or pleases them? I know that us worker bees are alienated to some degree every day, I think mainly from specialization of job functions. I liken it to being a decent guitar player, but the fun is lost because you wind up just being a stenographer and that ratatatat programs your brain and turns you into an OCDisordered robot that requires meds to chill out. Eighty percent of the people that I work with are on psych meds to prevent them from either panicking, punching the boss, or crying all day. The meds get added-people can "deal" with the stress better....and MORE gets added on, and you wind up in a similar situation later on. One coworker I know is a very strong person, and the other day he just said-"you know, I just need to get something prescribed so I can get through this every day." Never expected to hear it. Not that I am antimed. I NEED meds. There is just something that is harmful about moving from a situation with lots of control (with good and bad results to take responsiblity for) such as running a family farm and then sitting in front of a CRT tube 50 hrs a week. At first I just felt like I was coming out of a movie theatre when I got off work. That lessened and lessened and now I am conditioned to that and do not even notice it. Now, I get all of this PTSD-like ruminations about all of the nonsensical logical gibberish that I went through for the previous day or two while I am trying to sleep-talk to a friend, etc. I worked outside my house the other day on a day off and heard the Spring birds for the first time-a wonderful improvisational chaos that completley changed the way I feel. Vacations just aren't going to fix it. I have got to get back to athletic/visual/right-brained type work to heal myself up and get back to where I used to be. We are killing ourselves to live in many ways. Gee, "tune-in" and "drop-out" are getting pretty interesting airplay in my head lately. It could be bad judgement-could it be psychosis? Anyway, here is an interesting book that I got a knock-out history professor to break her chalk when I mentioned it. You have probably already checked it out.
"Madness and Civilization" (A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason).Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:19991
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020314/msgs/19994.html