Dear Catastrophe Waitress

The name of the album playing on the Pandora stream right now got me thinking.  I've been in a thinking mood most the evening, but it got me thinking on a silly, impersonal way. When I haven't been thinking, I've been reading, mostly.  And I've been mostly ready A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby.  In the book one character brings up Nick Drake as an artist, so I let Pandora acquaint us all day.  Nick died by his own hand, which is what the book is kind of about.  I like his music though, and I bought it today on itunes, wondering at the time where exactly the profits of his sale go.  I also bought music today by Nick Pitera, because I promised myself I'd buy his covers that I had already recorded off of youtube after I got christmas iTunes money.  It's been kind of a Nick day I guess.

So what if there really was a Catastrophe Waitress? I'm thinking like a metaphysical being that appears during tragic occasions, the kind of accidents that people gawk at, maybe a car wreck and maybe just a really bad choice of venue for a "heated discussion".  I don't think the catastrophe waitress would show up to offer service to the victims of the catastrophe, unless waitress was used in a very loose way.  Most catastrophe victims have needs from a very specific and urgent menu.

But what if she showed up among a crowd and asked stunned, dumbfounded people if they would like a drink, or if they needed a minute to look over the menu, and the stunned people just mumbled something incoherently.  Maybe if it was really bad she would return with a watered down cola and they would numbly take it from her.  I don't really see her offering a food menu, no one would look it over anyway.

Or maybe the catastrophe waitress shows up at disaster sites, like when that crane collapsed in House M.D. or that whatever crashed in Grey's Anatomy (I don't watch).  Those emergency workers work themselves to exhaustion, and often will find ways to slip back on the site even if they're ordered to rest.  Maybe she shows up for the food bank and passes around submarines made on the spot and gatorade, to the people who are working or are recovering and have been okayed to drink.  Shock victims are usually very thirsty, I know that much, but you're not supposed to give them water until they've been checked for internal damage.  The Catastrophe Waitress probably knows all about that, she's clearly a professional.

The album artwork that shows up on the Nick Drake album looks a lot like the kind of albums you come up with if you do that game where you take the random article from youtube and the random quote from the quote page to name your band and album and then the random photo from Flickr's photo pool and pretend they're an album.  This little exercise always amused me the first time it went around and I saw another friend do it again yesterday on Facebook.  I meant to save his fake album into my photo album I have up there from the first time around.

A girl named Kayelee told me that only restaurants have restrooms, everywhere else has bathrooms.  I hadn't heard that before and I was impressed with her.  Later on I thought about how they were probably called restrooms in stores too, because they don't have bath tubs in them there either.  It was still interesting to hear, and helped pass an awkward moment while we were at dinner with her boyfriend and her sister.  The dinner was fun though.  Kayelee is engaged now, to that boyfriend, and that's pretty good because he was an alright guy. When I think about my friends in high school, and then picture their alright parents, I can kind of see this guy being like those parents.  Most everybody doesn't turn out to be a somebody except to the people they love the most.  If you've got that down, you can really turn out alright, and even be a good dad.  They say most of it is learned as you go anyway. Good luck Kayelee and Chris, you're on a good track.

The messed up people in A Long Way Down go through a lot of development, but it's believable, and I devoured it like the juiciest pear.  One of the characters reflects that when you're unhappy, all of the things you usually do, you've done while you're unhappy, so even if you're trying to feel better and you go and do some of those things you like doing, they still have unhappiness attached to them.  She thinks that doing the same thing over and over again if you're already unhappy is only going to reinforce how unhappy you are.

One of the other characters is frustrated because he can't understand why he acts the way he does.  Eventually he works out that he needs to figure out what's going on in his head, but the only tool he has to do it with is that same head.  He decides that he needs a second head to figure out what the first one is doing, and since he only has the one, he has to call on the help of others.  It's a pretty straightforward concept, seems obvious, but it was an interesting way to getting around to pointing out that when you're stuck in your own thoughts it takes someone else to help you out.  He decides that's why most people have friends.  I think it's also why we also seek out partners in life, because you can't deal with everything in your own head without someone else to do the sorting out from time to time.   You can pay a counselor I guess, but they're about $60 an hour and are going to want to see you at least four or five times just to figure out where to start. Friends are a lot better because they already know what's going on, and you're going to see them anyway.

It's kind of like the wine I brought to dinner, the cost is the same I'd pay to buy a dinner for myself, but the wine lets everyone enjoy and I'm getting food out of the deal.  When you pool what you have, everyone can come out a little further ahead.  Plus the conversation is better with some wine, even if the late night blog posts are not.

Can't sleep.

I feel like a hamster in a 1' glass cube, sitting in the middle of a field.  Outside of my cube I can see all of the other hamsters running around, occasionally pausing to look in on me and have a little sniff, but mostly just scurrying about gathering all the abundant grains and food.  Occasionally there's a cat that comes by, or some birds fly by.  Sometimes it rains, mostly it's sunny.  In my box I can sleep, I have enough to eat and my waste doesn't pile up, it's not too hot and doesn't get cold, but everything else is outside of the safe little box.  I don't want for the basic necessities, but the greater experiences like exploring, bonding, facing life's challenges are beyond my reach.  Maybe if I was a hamster I'd feel happy.

Prompt 18: "Try" #Reverb10

December 18 – Try
What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?
(Author: Kaileen Elise)

 In 2011 I'd like to try living outside of Florida.  There. It's said, it's written, let it be done.

I don't think there was anything specific I had in mind for 2010 except to seek out happiness and find a job.  I did get a job, but it was more of a series of fortunate events that lead to it more than serious and consistent efforts on my part.  When I was looking for a job I found many job listings, but they all had so many applicants I wasn't surprised I was lost in the herd. When I didn't "go for it" I didn't get it, I don't know what big insight that's supposed to impart.  Not doing something means that thing doesn't happen.  Maybe it's just good to remind ourselves of that, especially if you're an expert at avoidance and procrastination.

Prompt 17: "Lesson Learned" #Reverb10

Alright, I have to say, maybe I'm just not taking time to reflect enough (sorry, it's hard enough to find to type the words that flow freely) but it really is starting to feel like these prompts are asking the same thing over and over again.  I think part of that is all the guest contributors.  If you ask 100 people to come up with a question in the vein of Reverb10's goals, they're going to be pretty similar.  I'm not involved enough to look into the selection process but it can be a little challenging to provide unique answers to repeat questions.

December 17 – Lesson Learned
What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?
(Author: Tara Weaver)

Reverb10 appealed to me because I'm terrible at self reflection.  One of the behaviors I've learned through my upbringing is to avoid taking responsibility for your actions, or avoid taking actions altogether.  It's a quality in my father that I loathe, and I should also point out that finding similarities between him and I is something else I loathe.  So generally, if I feel like I'm trying to weasel out of the blame or avoid taking responsibility anger will provide the bravery necessary to step up.

For the reason, it's important to reflect and identify those flaws.  The easy path is to just "be who you are", to accept the genetic combination of your two parents to have provided you with everything you can be, and the education of your experiences to be the only filter on the world you need.  The enlightened path is to strive to be more than the sum of your parts.  Although I know I hate self reflection, and would rather be unhappy than figure out why I'm unhappy or come up with an idea for a change, I'm making the effort in writing my thoughts and feelings out here.
 

SO.  Some of the lessons of 2010.  In order to help me remember more of what all happened over the course of an entire year, I'm going to check out this My Year in Status thing I've seen popping up around Facebook. 

 

 

How interesting.  If you don't get the GetCurious, that's my Facebook and Twitter account name.

Here's some of the points the year in status made me realize.  Apparently I was really disappointed by Google Wave, because I bash it three times in this tiny selection of my year.  The reference to Pixar is interesting because it brings up how touched I am by beautiful accomplishments and that extra effiort that goes a long way, I say how I didn't like Up! but I just recently watched Toy Story 3 and they more than redeemed themselves.  When I mentioned "How is it March already? and "Sorry whatever is happening Saturday, I've forgotten" it perfectly illustrates my absentmindedness when it comes to scheduling and dates and planning ahead, I should probably try to be more organized.

 

(It's not a coincidence that the year I finally graduated college was the first year I started using a day planner, but have since stopped because there's little to go into it.  2011 must change this > I < must change this in 2011.)

"I shouldn't have internet connection whilst intoxicated" is universally applicable.  I'm glad I had the prescience to point that out before I did whatever stupid decisions followed.  I've never been a problematic drunk person, but I think this year was relatively tame compared to the end of college.  Except for the Four Loko experiment, which I admit that I enjoyed and would gladly repeat.

LOST ending sucked.  In 2009, when I was very depressed, one of my thoughts was "Well suicide isn't an option because LOST isn't done yet and I have to see how this turns out."  It's a good thing I was feeling much better by March of this year.  The fact is, there's always something worth living for, even if you can't name it yet.

I had forgotten how much fun we had driving that 2010 Chevy Camaro rental.  I really did change behind that wheel.  Deep down I harbor a self image that has class and style, that has great sex appeal and doesn't let the world's issues interfere with his life, has money and ambition and enjoys every day more than the last.  I'm pretty sure that version of me drives a 2010 Camaro, wherever he wants to.

So if I have an idea of a version of myself that lives like that, what are some of the things that hold me back? I can make a pretty quick list:  Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of violence or ridicule,  confusion on how to make my ideas work, expectations from others to behave otherwise.  It's amazing, even at 27, how much I still behave like my 14 year old self.  I think most of my friends have learned how to live their own lives, and I don't actively do that, I do so passively.  If that's a lesson I learned in 2010 then in the year ahead I need to take better responsibility for who I am, and if I want to be someone other than who I am, take responsibility for that man too, because the only way they're going to meet is through me.

How's that for unique reply, stupid prompt 17 ((Also, Tara Weaver, author of prompt 17, sorry for the bashing, it would have been a great prompt )) and look at that response! I'm going to have to reread this later, after I get out of the house and go meet a new friend with an old friend for dinner.  (Maybe I'll pretend I'm driving a Camaro on the way there ;)