Hunker Down

It would be really grand if someone would write a book on living with depression.  Not on coping or dealing or treating it - those terms seem to elude to the possibility of eradicating the condition.  But the truth is depression is a disease and no matter how well maintained, it is something that requires a lifetime of care.

And sometimes it just blows.  Some days just suck and there is nothing to be done about it.  Sure there are activities, holistic treatment plans and of course drugs that make it better but the reality of living with depression is that some days are hard, foggy, heavy, whatever.  Those stupid anti-depressant commercials are actually pretty spot on as far as symptoms go and sometimes you just have to hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.  And when you don't have a whole lot of time to begin with that can be the most infuriating part.

So please, someone, write me a book that talks about that.  Don't give me lessons on making depression go away. I know enough about treatment.  I am not curled up in the fetal position thinking I am going to die. We moved beyond that years ago.  And I know it is not 'me' but rather fucked up chemicals in my brain.  28 years in, I am well versed in the realities of depression.  Like diabetes, thyroid conditions, hypertension, whatever, it is just shit we have to deal with, facts of life we have to be aware of on a daily basis.  Life doesn't stop just because the bad days come.  There are still jobs to get to or classes to take, engagements to keep.

But when the bad days fall and my voracious appetite for life is reduced to dull hunger pains,  I wish someone could talk to me about living with the pain and the realities of waiting for the end of the hurricane.

NY State of Mind

I am starting to wonder if I am better looking in New York.  I have accepted that this is cat-call culture and as such am just not that special but the nods of appreciation have evolved into something more.  Now not one but two strangers have stopped me on the street and asked me to marry them and downright poetic excuses of flattery are taking place on soggy and sad afternoons.

"What a nasty day today," some random guy commented this afternoon as we bumped umbrellas.

"Yeah, this weather just needs to make up its mind."

"Well at least we have you to make the day beautiful."

Between this and all the, "what a lovely lady"s,  I am gonna start getting a big head.  But at least it will match my ass - which suddenly doesn't look all that bad.

Not everyone's cup of tea

Have you ever known without a shadow of a doubt that someone, who ranks no deeper than an acquaintance, who might, under different circumstances, like you, inexplicablely resents every part of who you are? Not minor irritation but true all encompassing resentment.


I know this to be a true phenomenon because during various parts of my life I have resented people, almost exclusively other women, for just being who they are.  I haven't felt that way in a long time and I wonder how much of it stems from insecurity and jealousy. Some too has to come from that fact that we all can't be everyone's cup of tea.

I came to the harsh realization today that I have become the subject of such resentment for someone I really like. That my ignorance and inexperience and perhaps voracious appetite for knowledge has made my classmate downright disgusted. 


We are entering into week 5 and until this point her resentment had yet to register, perhaps with either of us, but today it became too much. She was telling me about some blog written by some woman who used to run some gallery that was founded by some very important man who is no longer around, all of whom I had never heard of.

"God, you have a lot of catching up to do."

"I know.  I am trying, I am reading everything I can but after all I just moved here."

"Well, didn't you keep up with what was going on in New York before you moved here?" The question was more of a blurt than an actual desire for a response.  The creases in her forehead made unpleasant wiggly shapes pointing down to the tip of her nose.  I wasn't sure exactly why but I had seriously offended her.

I probably shouldn't have said what I said next. "No, why would I have, I had no interest in New York and no intention of coming here."  I was about to go on and explain for the tenth time that I am a performer and writer and that this is my first entree into visual art but I didn't think it would have diffused the situation. 


I had been, after all, accepted into a special curatorial program that she wasn't. 


I was telling my mother about the conversation a few days later and I could tell that it was still bothering me because of my need to talk about it (and now write about it).  


"You can't let her make you feel bad about yourself," mom said in typical mom-like wisdom.  


And I wasn't, at least not in the way such a comment might have once chipped away at my self-confidence.  "The problem is, I really like this girl," I explained. "I think she is really smart and interesting and I could learn a lot from her but at this point I don't think it is going to happen.  I don't know why they chose me and not her and it really isn't my problem.  If she wanted it bad enough she would have done what I did and barged into the program directors office and babbled at her until she let me in."


I spend every day I am in New York, knowing I don't know enough, knowing that if I read everything that is put before me and research every concept and word and movement that I don't understand, I still won't know enough.  But I have to believe - for my sanity - that that is not the point.  


I might not have known about fancy blog lady who used to run the fancy space founded by the fancy man, but now I do -  because someone was willing to tell me. 


That is why I am in New York.  That is why I am studying curation.  Because there are so many people with different backgrounds and different ideas who have knowledge to share if someone will create a space for them to share and exchange their ideas.


So I might not know about visual art now but I can talk writers and performers and philanthropists and more than that I can listen, and that has to count for something.

Meeting of the Mind

It is a lot easier to make the body catch up to the mind than to readjust the mind to meet the body.

I have had a major reduction in the junk in my trunk since I moved to New York.  I can't get all back-patty because really it is just the result of walking everywhere - well, my constant lateness and therefor running everywhere- my poorness and sudden lack of appetite for beer.

Oh and I have been swimming or attempting to. I may have gotten kicked out of the slow lane by some prepubescent lifeguard who requested I join an old dude in snorkel gear in the recreational (aka doggie paddle) lane but I am keeping at it, if only because it is the one thing I do that can get my mind to calm down.

The other day I was sitting on the edge of the pool stretching on a mat.  Stretching is not the most attractive of activities even clothed so imagine doing it in a swimming suit and swim cap.  Hotness.

There I was touching my toes, my tummy doing unsightly squishy things, even doing bicycle sit-ups with cellulite fully exposed, in full view of the dudes in the cardio room.

It wasn't until I was shower-shoed and washing the chlorine out of my hair in the locker room that the significance of this hit me.  Chubby girl in a swim suit not feeling bad about herself.  How the hell did that happen?

I came home that night and took a look at some of my photos from LA and Russia. Damn, did I look good.  I guess that is what not eating and constantly hating yourself will do to you.  But no thank you.  I will pass.

It is so much easier to change a body than to change a mind and that is something we don't talk about enough.  We focus on fixing the outside first, thinking that is the key to inner happiness but it is not.  Show me someone who loves herself on the inside and I will show you someone who can tackle body issues head on, enjoying the process every step of the way. No one is perfect. We all have days when we hate our legs, our face, our great big rear end and that is okay. But we each have something special that trumps all that, that makes us special, beautiful and unique.

I like me, junk and all, and if New York culture can help me feel even better than that is a change I am glad to make but in the meantime I am going to enjoy the slow lane, as long as snorkel man keeps his eyes off my backside.  'Cause you know I look pretty damn fine in that swim cap.

An Egg to Crack

I have a new friend.  I am very excited about this as I made the executive decision that she would be my friend and then basically clubbed her, bagged her and drug her to my cave (aka the nearest bar) until "she" came up with the brilliant idea that we should be friends. (Insert evil laugh) My master plan worked.

I really like this girl.  She is nothing like any friend I have ever had which I didn't realize until I got home after a happy hour that didn't end until ten.  Looking back over all of my years of friendships, I don't have any really shy friends, probably because my friends have to be loud and obnoxious enough to be heard over my loud, obnoxiousness.  I seriously racked my brain trying to think of one friend I have had that I could consider shy, like really shy, not just shy in particular situations.

I am intrigued by this girl. I can tell she has really interesting thoughts rolling around in that head of hers and it seems to me like she really wants to share them but just hasn't quite found her voice yet. Maybe she's just all 'speak softly and carry a big stick'.  I am not sure but I am excited to find out.

Invasion of the tiny people

[DISCLAIMER: NO CHILDREN OR THEIR PARENTS WERE INJURED IN THE MAKING OF THIS POST.  IF YOU FIND THE TERM 'BREEDER' OFFENSIVE, STOP READING NOW.]

When I moved to Park Slope I was warned that it was overrun with baby carriages, that little people crowd the streets and stay-at-home moms/nannies take over every freaking seat at Starbucks.

I was warned I would go crazy, that I would begin to look at the breeders with raw hatred and disgust but it wouldn't matter.  I would be outnumbered and powerless against the swarms of children bombarding me, cutting me off, slamming into me with their scooters and tricycles and training wheeled bikes.

"Nonsense," I protested.  I love kids.  The Midwest was breeder crazy.  All these families mean it is a safe neighborhood. How bad could it be?

IT IS FREAKING BAD, people. BAD.

So much so that with the exception of my beautiful perfect princess Maddy, I have developed an uncontrollable desire to drop-kick every whiney, snotty, smelly tiny person that gets in my way.

And it's not their fault. It's the Breeders'.

There is an entire website dedicated to the fact that women in Park Slope regularly whip out the boob in line at Starbucks and that the bars have become so inundated with strollers that there is no place for single people wanting to drink away their realities to sit.

I have friends who are parents.  I have tiny people I love so much I would gladly let them run rampant in the sidewalks.  But right now I can't see that.  Right now, I am just blinded with irritation and all I can see is my bat-shit next-door neighbor screaming at the top of her lungs about noise that is apparently coming from my apartment and keeping her and her off-spring awake.

(HOLY SHIT, as I write this I am being smacked by a little person, who can't grasp the concept of rock, paper, scissors and whose mother just doesn't really care about the assault of a stranger. But I digress.)

Anyway, crazy neighbor, who I get to call crazy because she chose to voice her frustrations by screaming at my landlord in the middle of the street (New Yorkers do a lot of screaming at each other, I am learning), was upset because she believed me to be building something in the middle of the night.

My landlord texted me about the problem and I immediately became racked with Catholic guilt.  Awash with Sister Jackie flashbacks, my mouth went dry and I started to sweat.

But wait a second.  I wasn't hanging or building anything at the hour in question and unless paint rollers send seismic shocks through brick walls, crazy was off base.   Still, I did hang a decorative shelf on a a middle wall with a SCREWDRIVER but as my mother groaned in perfect motherly disgust - you have got to be kidding me.  I don't know what this woman was hearing but obviously my breathing was too loud. The guilt passed and the irritation grew and grew.

My landlord sent another text on behalf of the neighbor.  "Please keep quiet hours after 8 o'clock."

8 o'clock?  8 a freaking clock?  Primetime TV doesn't even begin until 8 o'clock.  Who even gets home before 8 o'clock?   Are you telling me I can't even vacuum after 8 o'clock should I feel so inclined???

Irrationality was filling my being. Little people screaming wakes me up before 7 am every Saturday morning but I am to live like a monk.

I am not proud of the thoughts I had or how long they lasted (5 days) or the spiteful things I felt like doing such as washing my pots and pans with a metal ladle instead of a sponge.

Instead I went out and when I was home, hid in the alcove that is my bedroom.

Eventually, though I saw my landlord on the street with her 5 year old triplets in tow.  She was clearly sleep deprived and over-caffeinated.  I told her I heard the neighbor's rant from my bedroom window and I was truly sorry if I had done anything inappropriate.

"Don't worry," she told me.  She had lived in my studio before and the radiator sounded like a firing squad.  "It is not your fault."

"Do you mind if we go in today and check your smoke detectors?" she asked me as I was walking away.

"Sure, if you don't mind the mess of stuff I have yet to hang up."

"No problem," she said, "I live with three kids.  They are animals."

AMEN.

It's a Process

I have moved five times in the last 10 years each time to a place where I knew no one, or almost no one. I am, at this stage in the game, a relocation expert. I firmly believe that people do it wrong, that there is a process and series of steps that must be followed in order to successfully assimilate into any new community. Failure to complete this series or to bypass one step to get to a later, more alcohol filled step will result in frustration, disappointment and inevitably the desire to uproot oneself again in favor of a location where the presence of family and friends makes life a bit easier.

Being in grad school and attempting to digest 1000 pages of theory a week has made sticking to my process a bit difficult. I know that before I can find a job, develop a network of acquaintances that grows into a network of friends, and eventually tackle that whole dating beast, I must first start at home.

I am a big believer in nesting. If your home isn't comfortable and welcoming than you won't want to be there and since you are at home a lot in the beginning - you know, before you get a life - it can be a depressing reality.

Downsizing from 900 square feet to 300 square feet has meant living in an endless game of tetris. Move the pile of crap from this corner to that corner to this corner and back again.

I have made multiple trip to Ikea in search of storage solutions and the place has slowly been coming along. This weekend, however, I decided enough was enough. I needed to get this place put together once and for all, if only to get it off my to do list. (Photos to come.)

There is still a lot to do but now I can actually sit on my couch and walk around without worrying about squashing fatty and even have room to do sit ups on the floor should I feel so motivated.

And I am telling you the process works. As soon as I didn't dread coming home, opportunities started to present themselves that kept me out of the house.  New acquaintances with serious friend potential, reconnecting with old friends and potential new work opportunities.  Even the theory started to get a little easier.

Life is a process and the key to making it through is making sure you enjoy life one step at a time.