Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Librarian(ism) is a SCIENCE... right?

As most of my friends know, I like to tell stories.  I love to tell big, tall tales, and see how many people I can get to believe them before I say halfway through the story, "just kidding, I'm making this up!" and we have a laugh.  Of course this isn't mean-spirited, it's all in good fun and I never make things up to hurt people's feelings.  But my favorite stories are the ones that I tell to complete strangers.  Like the math teacher that I met at the bar a few weeks ago and told him I was a librarian.  I felt that this was a perfectly boring thing to be in a man's eyes, and he wouldn't ask me more questions before buying me a drink.  Boy was I wrong!!!

I had to remember everything I had ever learned about becoming a librarian when I was supporting this scheme I had come up with for a free cocktail. 
"Where did you go to school?  What did you major in to become a librarian??" he asked.
"Well, I went to Simmons of course, and I studied... library... science?" Somehow, that part was actually true.  Librarians go to school to be librarians.  It's not the easiest job in the world, and apparently there's a science to it.  And maybe there was another reason why I knew all about this...

My grandmother was a librarian.  Was?  IS, she is a librarian I should say, because I don't think that when you are something for thirty-plus years you can just give it up and not be that thing anymore.  She still socializes with her librarian friends, reads more books than I can possibly imagine, and is so smart and articulate.  She's also fair, has a mind for equality, not the least bit racist or prejudice, (except maybe she doesn't like Muslims, but who can blame her when our family came to America after the Christian Massacre in Turkey?  Don't comment on that) and an all-around great woman to have for a grandmother. 

When my grandpa Henry died 23 years ago, that was it.  She still wears his ring and she'll meet him in Heaven.  What a love she must've had for him, right?  So admirable.

I think it's because I hate the idea of her getting old when she wasn't always that old, or because my Nana is so young in comparison, but I just can't believe she's almost 80!  I mean, she's perfectly fine and doesn't seem inhibited in any way so far as I can tell.  I hate to even think about it when she says, "I'm old, this isn't my real hair color you know!" and she's laughing while I'm already sad.  I'm a very pathetic human being when it comes to sadness.  Nostalgia creeps up on me before there's a real reason to get nostalgic.  It's like I'm revving up for what I know is coming, and pre-programming my thoughts for what they should be about for when I'm sad and missing the moment that I'm in right now.

The fact that my grandmother reads so many books, is one of the things that I admire most about her.  I wish I had the time to read more, because even though I read the paper every day, I want to read so many things that I probably should have already!  I've never read Jane Austin, I've only seen the movies.  Lord of the Rings?  Nope, never did it.  The Great Gatsby?  I could keep going all night with all the classics that "everyone's read" and I haven't.  She's not even a working librarian, and she's still reading all the time!  What's wrong with me??

While I work on my time management skills and my polish up on my common literature, I think I need to make the following thing a goal of mine:  Before my grandmother passes away, I want to write a book.  I want to write a book that everyone will want to read.  As she sits in her backyard on a nice warm sunny afternoon and sips lemonade, my grandmother could be reading my book that I wrote, and that's one of the things that i want the most.  She'd really be proud of me.

(And for those doubters out there, her mother lived to be 94 so I think I might have a realistic amount of time to complete this goal.)

Saturday, September 24, 2011

cold is the water, it freezes your already cold mind (but you are not alone in this)

I think I should delete Mumford and Sons off of my computer, out of my phone, and hide the cd away in my Europe box with my other memories.  Some people love the band so much, and I won't lie and say I don't think they're an amazingly talented band with great tunes.  But I will say that I have too many memories attached with that music, and right now I need not remember them.  Sometimes music can alternate your mood so much, that it affects you for days.  I'll listen to some country tunes and feel ramped and happy, but I'll turn on The Weepies and wonder why I even bother.  I think bands are ruined when I share them with other people.  Some of my favorite songs used to make me smile and now I have to skip over them in my playlist.

One year ago, I went to England.  It's about the one year anniversary to the Fresher's Ball.  There's a picture of me and my two French friends, such great and wonderfully goodhearted girls.  And now they are living in France, and I am here.  Laicia loved Mumford, and so did practically all of our friends.

There was someone I dated briefly, before or in between when I was seeing my Irish boy (I don't always like to talk about the Irish one, it's a very long story on its own).  I'm almost ashamed to bring it up, because this English one really was such a nice guy, but I wasn't ready for nice.  He played guitar at the church, big buff blue eyed blonde, and on our first date he bought me the Mumford & Sons cd.  I had never heard of them, and according to him, that was unacceptable.  I really got into them, and was very impressed that he played guitar so well because he played a few of their songs almost to a tee.  He didn't take our split very well.  A part of me wishes I had gotten along better with him, but life can't be about what-ifs.  Maybe I just wish I could apologize.  Or maybe the music is messing with my head.  Oh goodness, my church friends I miss entirely too much as well.

This week has been especially hard because not only have I been wishing I could go back, but I've been dreaming about my friends and hanging out with them in our kitchen, drinking cheap wine and getting terrible Domino's pizza, laughing about playing "Never Have I Ever..." with bad English.  We told secrets, shared stories, laughed, cried, fought, got drunk, had goodnight kisses at the back door, did homework, avoided homework, cooked, people-watched, and squeezed as many people as we could into this little tiny kitchen of our flat that had no livingroom and a couch.

That was what I dreamed about twice this week, at least.  Our awful, bare, cheap kitchen, that ended up being our favorite room in the house.  We'd knock on the back door and enter each other's flats through these kitchens in the complex of Park Wood, making faces through the window until someone came to answer.  We had a Thanksgiving dinner with what may have been almost 30 people, and multiple goodbye parties the last couple weeks of school.  I remember my first cup of tea at the table was with Auggy, and I felt so grownup talking about our new friends over a cup of tea.  Many cups of tea were poured over discussions and one-on-one sitdowns.  That was our social life outside of the pub, gathering in all of our kitchens, maybe bringing a guitar and keeping the back door open for all the smoking and drinking that would go on outside.  The table saw every kind of cheap alcohol, roasted birds, pancake and egg suppers, and more junk food and baked goods than we needed to take note of.  And it was ours.  Our little kitchen.

I hope I don't dream tonight.  My friends are living all over the planet, and I don't know why I miss Kent so much when it's all lost now.  Not so lost in our hearts, but we graduated and most of my closest friends are no longer students there, so it would never be the same.  A part of my life really is over, so I hope I don't dream about it because my dreams are always so real.  As much as I would love to see my friends, I'll wake up and our kitchen will be my bedroom, with no electric kettle, no curry-stained dishtowel, no plexiglass uncomfortable chairs that I miss even though I hated those too, no sink that always seemed to splatter water all over everywhere, and no laughter from those that I wonder if they miss me as I miss them.

They'll never know how much joy they really gave me by being such great friends.  And sometimes it's painful to try to stay in touch; who can keep up with schedules 6 hours apart?  But really, my sanity was found when I was there.  Sure I missed home, and I was sad for it around the holidays, but I'll say it again I found out what a real friend is when I got away.  I had support for all my acting shows, hugs and kisses and tea when I was crying over a boy, motivation and cookies when we all had ten or twenty page papers, and everything in between.

I had fun and friends at UMass, but looking back at Kent I know exactly how my friends felt when they were sad at graduation.  I won't miss Amherst like I miss Canterbury.  I was free at that college, and not shut up in a cage with no growth in my skills in school or begging for friends like a lost puppy in a meaningless house.  I mean at least the few friends I did make at UMass I still have here, because if they were thousands of miles away I would have absolutely noone.

God, I hope I don't dream tonight.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Something I have noticed (or not noticed)

I have somewhat been realizing that when I go go go for a long period of time, my days feel so rushed and anything I do while I'm doing it, (cooking dinner, having a conversation, doing comedy) it's over so fast that I barely remember it happening.  It's like I'm waiting to be done with everything, so much so that I don't take the time to be present and enjoy anything.  I don't even like being drunk anymore, because this effect is put into hyperdrive.  When drunk, it's almost like I'm pushing fast forward on my entire night and it was already going by very fast to begin with.

I find myself barely becoming engaged with anything, and when I think about the past few weeks, it seems like it all happened months ago.  Staying present in a moment is like grabbing onto something inches away that keeps inching further and further away until my brain gives up all hope of sanity.  It's scary, I think about how I don't remember things and enjoy the memory as if it were today, it's as if I think of something recent and struggle to feel as though it just happened because it's all cloudy.

I've felt this before, where I feel like I'm floating and barely conscious; am I overtired? anxious? dead and don't remember dying? having a mental breakdown? on drugs?

Well I'm alive, and I haven't had any anxiety lately, and I'm certainly not on drugs.  So overtired and mental breakdown seem to be going neck and neck.

My current theory is this:  I am alone A LOT throughout the day, and a lot throughout this past summer I was alone.  This is due to always going going and more going.  Go on the bus, go on the train, go to work, go to make a bottle, go to get something to eat, go to use your phone, go to dinner, go to the bar, go up onstage, go home, go to bed.  When I'm around other people it's so easy to be present, but I also find myself to be tired and I don't always have interest in keeping all the conversations that I have, and somehow want to just go to bed or do something else.  Then when I'm alone I'm upset with everything because my brain seems to be malfunctioning and I'm trying to remember someone's name I just met and if I had fun when I was at the comedy club.  Yes, it's that bad.

So I'm aware there is an issue, right?  Why am I not seeking help?  Because I have a distinct feeling that if this is related to being overtired or having some sort of crazy bipolar disorder, then I will have to be on meds for something and that will just make my floating feeling get even worse.  So then what?  Well, I find my mind much more snappy when I am conversing with others and around people, so my solution is to get out and force myself to be more social I suppose... thought I was doing enough already.  I've gotta be overtired, that's probably key here somewhere.  Isn't there something written somewhere that says your brain barely sucks in information when you're overtired?  So that's it then, right?  Or maybe I'm slipping away slowly but surely.  Who knows.  But it's very hard to find motivation to do anything lately and I'm very upset about that.