Clarification

I've been thinking for a long time about ending this blog. It's become repetitive. I think about it too much. I fret about what people must think about me sometimes. It isn't fun any more.

This is my life. I have been managing a steady course for a while now and hope to continue doing that.

Something turned in me a month or two ago. It might have been around my birthday. I thought, if I am not the person I want to be at this point, when will I ever be? If I want bright red hair cut short and spiky, if I want to wear fabulous boho jewelry, who is keeping me back? If I want to have fun, who is telling me not to? This is my chance to become eccentric without being woo-woo eccentric. If I don't allow myself this now, when will I ever do it?

What about those novels that have been building themselves in my head for the past year? When will I type them into being?

I hate blogs that end without a fare-thee-well. One day they're there, the next, they're gone. As one of the locals says in "Local Hero" on learning the main character has left rural Scotland and gone back to America, "Bugger it! I meant to say cheery-o."

All of the "Thoughts on" posts are about my experiences, thoughts and feelings. Comments aren't switched on because this is one area where I don't want public comments. I know how easy it is to be glib when it comes to comments. If you have something to say to me, I welcome it. Send me an email. The "thoughts" aren't for public commentary. And as my grandma said, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.

I plan on wrapping this up around Labor Day.

At least the "interludes" should be amusing.

Cheery-o.

Thoughts On Mental Illness

Stay away from crazy people.

There, I said it.

Their craziness will not infect you, but it will draw you in just like you were Brer Rabbit trying to deck the tar baby.

I've been thinking of suicide since I was about nine years old. I didn't know what else to do with myself. I existed as a punching bag for my mother's overwhelming pain and maltreatment at work. Asking for help made people turn away from me. And made my mother that much angrier.

When I was a teenager, I would get a double-edged razor blade from my parents' medicine chest and start drawing faint lines on my arms that would leave little bubbles of blood. There was a metallic zinging of pain, but that was the whole point - to provide me with the illusion that if I caused the pain, I controlled it. It was a good illusion and it lasted a long time, the satisfaction I got from cutting myself. I also liked to light candles and then pour the dripping wax onto the backs of my hands. I did this in the living room and my mother read the newspaper while I did it. "You're going to burn yourself," she said and I thought, exactly the point, but nothing more was said about it than that.

I had a little dance with anorexia when I was in college, eating 500 calories a day. It worked, too. I lost a lot of weight but then I started having hallucinations. I started eating again.

When I was in my mid to late 20s, I drank too much. I stopped that. Just stopped it right then and there. Never did street drugs. Used whatever was prescribed to me and a bunch of stuff was prescribed to me. Oddly, I attempted suicide with a big bottle of aspirin. When my mother found out I didn't take it all, she found the bottle, put it in front of me and said, "Finish it."

Yes. So you see, the reasons to avoid crazy people is that they may seem relatively okay for awhile and then, boom, out of nowhere, they are all about the craziness.

Forget that the person had been observantly taking prescribed medication. You will never know about the efforts made in private in that person's life to control the crazy.

All you know is that they are crazy.

And therefore, much to be avoided.

Thoughts on Friends

When I went to the Clarion writers' workshop a very long time ago, one of the organizers stood up as we were gathered around the proverbial campfire and said, "You will make friends here that will last you a lifetime."

I was thrilled. I wanted friends that I would have for a lifetime. And I mean more than the lifetime of your average stray cat.

Up until the time I was about eight, I had friends everywhere. Nobody bullied me. In fact, I am sorry to say that I joined in with a bunch of girls to bully another girl whose mom was fat. (Fate can be cruel, can't it?) I had a best friend. I had neighborhood friends. After I got sick (and fat!), I had Little Wayne (no, not a rap star, just a short white kid) who stood up for me against any evildoers.

Then the color line was broken in the neighborhood and it all got chipped away. When I got to the new neighborhood, I started school in February. Everyone in school had been together since kindergarten. I was fat and I was weird. I liked to read. One day after I'd been walking in the woods, a tick fell out of my hair and I stood up screaming.

Yeah. Not the most popular girl in school.

So when I did find a friend, I clung to her for dear life. I was a serial friend. When one got tired of me hanging onto her, I found another one. Basically, I would hang out with anyone who would have me, including my sixth grade friend Bev, whose older sister was always bringing home unknown pills wrapped in aluminum foil. Bev offered these to me one day and I said no. And she was still my friend. Because nobody else would be her friend.

I wish I could say I've been friends with the people from Clarion since then. I regularly call Emma or she calls me. One of the others was close but seems to have drifted away. Her friend-making abilities leave me in awe. I get the hint from her - she hasn't phoned me in years. Whenever we talk, it's a great conversation, but I'm the one who made the call.

Because I am so bad at friends, I don't make much of an effort anymore.

The Speechifier officers had a meeting a couple of weeks ago. I got there early with the Prince Consort and Queen Bee. We were talking. My phone rang, I excused myself and when I missed Emma's call, said, "Sheesh, my one friend in the world, Prince Consort, and you make me miss the call." I put the phone back in my purse and it rang again. Emma will sometimes call again to leave a message. I hauled out my phone again and saw it was the Prince Consort. "One friend in the world," he said, laughing, and so did the Queen Bee.

I think my definition of friend must be different from other people's. Mine is probably stuck back in third grade. It has an element of the old "all for one, one for all" spirit to it, which is probably as outdated as an eight-track cassette.

It's hard for me to accept that people move on. And that they move on without me. In some cases, run away without me.

And yes, I get lonely sometimes. And sometimes, when I make friends, it's inappropriately quickly. No wonder why they run away...

Friends are mostly in the past. I seem to have a way of alienating people without even being aware that I'm doing it. So best not to make the effort because I will inevitably put a foot wrong. And once more, I'll watch that person walk away from me.