Namaste, Bitches

"So this is Christmas,
and what have you done?
Another year older
A new one's just begun..."

It starts going through my head every year about this time. Doesn't help that the calendar flips over on my birthday. No matter how Pagan I am, I can't give up the secular celebration of the New Year.

Registered & paid for my Spring semester, which begins in late January. All on-line classes, too, woohoo!

I am so tired, unbelievably tired, of my life. I want to be dead, I want it to all be over - the endless search for meaning in a meaningless existence. The constant drudgery. Work, school, marriage, life in itself, searching for soul food & a place to eat. I am beyond exhausted with it. Yesterday I dreamed I had AIDS & in the dream was forgetting whether it was just HIV or if it was full blown AIDS. The treatment facility was a mesh of a library, lecture hall & the Excalibur business offices, and I was taking Ativan, which I know is a drug, but I don't think it's part of the HIV/AIDS cocktail - I think Ativan is for a mental illness. Rob said it was because I was thinking of how many naked men I am not seeing on a regular basis, but I don't think it has anything to do w/penii.

Going over the Christmas-card list, wondering if I should skip the whole coworker thing. That's the problem w/having 80 co-workers, plus coworking acquaintances in other departments. If I only give cards out to a few people, I'm elitist, and if I give cards to everyone - well, damn, have you looked at card prices lately? Sheesh. Not to mention all the generic greeting-writing & licking of envelopes.

Thinking about change and the lack thereof in my world. Some people remake themselves, over & over again. They never seem to be who they were the day before. Fickle people, can't settle down with one persona, one self-image. Always have to be tweaking it, seeking some sort of elusive something. I suppose I'd understand it more if I was one of them, but even in high school, I just tried to be normal, accepted, ignored. I went through a brief phase as a bully in jr. high school, mainly because everyone thought I was nuts because I was from SoCal - L.A. had a really bad reputation in the mid to late '80's, and I could tell some hair-raising stories about gang warfare & serial killers. I have tamed down my sluttiness somewhat, mainly because I worry about having sexual harassment charges filed against me - but I can still get my flirt on when appropriate. I have pretty much stopped drinking... stopped going to raves, etc., but I don't think that's so much changing who I am as it is growing older. Even this whole school change - it heralds a change of schedules, but it doesn't change me. Wherever I go, whatever I do, here I am.

Last night at work I actually roamed around the front desk, talking to people... it was odd. When I first walked out there, Valentina & Kelly were engaged in a heated debate about political correctness & tolerance. Valentina is 18, Kelly is in her 40's. Valentina is fairly enlightened, but she is also very young. I can see both sides clearly, but I tend to agree more w/Valentina's stance on things, especially when it comes to the separation of church & state, & the need for religious & social tolerance. Kelly is willing to consider new things, but she gets frustrated by change and what she sees as going through unnecessary backflips to make small groups of vastly different people happy. We all do. You get older & new things begin to get scary & intimidating. It's harder to keep up & it's harder to stay open-minded. Valentina has a lot of energy, she's got this diehard sort of 'If you want something that you feel will make you happy badly enough, you will sacrifice everything to obtain it." I told her to write it down & lock it away til she's 35. Not because she's right & we're wrong, or that we're right & she's wrong, but simply because a person can change a lot between 18 & 35. Your worldview & priorities change drastically. Especially being as she's female & will probably eventually want & create small screaming things.

Later, she, Duane & I were talking about how a person's priorities can change. Duane's in his 50's, slowly creeping up on retirement. So his priorities are even different from Kelly's, mine, and drastically different than Valentina's. He told her that about 25 years ago, she & we wouldn't even be able to sit at the same table & have the conversation. Not because she wouldn't have even been a twinkle in her daddy's eye at that point, but because she's Russian. Anyone remember the Cold War? Duane was in the military, helping the US Armed Forces destroy the 'Russian threat' & bringing down communism. I watched the Wall come down live on MTV, complete w/Pink Floyd & David Hasselhoff. It was one of the defining events of my teenaged life. Watching them destroy the Berlin Wall & bring the world a little closer together. Learning that the Soviet Union was no longer the enemy, but simply Russia... No more East or West Germany, but simply Germany. Duane remembers the walls being built, I remember the walls coming down, and Valentina? She says, "Oh, all that" with a dismissive wave of her hand. The whole conversation just made me feel old. Valentina feels that America's gross consumerism is the root of all evil & unhappiness, but yet when you ask her why she's going to college, it's so she can be a psychologist & make lots of money, have a couple of nice cars & a couple of nice houses.

Went to the Indoor Swapmeet today. Stayed up this morning. My knees hurt so bad it's indescribable. Sometimes I feel that when I bend my legs, the end of my thighbone is going to pop right out of the skin. But, wtf, we got out of the house. And we got some slow, leisurely exercise. Walked & walked for a good 3 hrs. Ate the nuts, played w/the toys, looked at stuff. I got a dream catcher & some oils. Played w/a dragon singing bowl, and a regular singing bowl at the Tibetan stand. The dragon bowls at the Swapmeet were about $40 - $60 less than from the online shops, and about $100 less than from The Pyramid Collection catalog. I'm really trying not to buy any knick-knacks til we move. I think today sort of defined it for me & Rob. We kept seeing some really interesting stuff, but we both kept saying, "No, we'd just have to move it." No matter how ill-advised it is, whether we end up crawling back to Vegas in poverty & defeat, we're probably going to be moving to Washington w/in the next year. I've gotten a stay of execution from the Ex for at least 120 days, and after that, it's only going to be another 4 months til I get vested, so I'm thinking, 'I can work out on the line for 4 months. What's 4 months?' I will go & get FMLA & just work the 4 months and then we will leave.
Right now I feel like I look hideous. The Paxil made me break out so bad. I feel like Quasimodo. Went & got some more Benziclin (yeesh, it’s freaking expensive, but it’s good to my face) & the break-out is clearing up. I have gotten so bored trying to kill extra time at work that I will probably start going out front for an hour or so each night. I just really haven’t wanted anyone to look at me over the past month or so. They’ve had a lot of people working in guest services, mainly because they’ve been training Enrico. I look through that office door & see all those people sitting there & just want to turn around & go home. I don’t even want to be physically close to anyone. I’ve been feeling so alien inside that… well, I feel like this guy who was in both an H. P. Lovecraft story & a Stephen King short story… He was cursed. If he came into physical contact w/anyone they would die. As a result, he held himself very aloof & stand-offish, and only a few people understood his problem. Of course, in the H. P. story, because of the time it was written in, the man became sort of a pariah, like a leper. In SK’s story, people treated him like he had a mental illness, but were usually respectful of his wishes to not touch or be touched. In both stories, tho, the man eventually committed suicide by shaking his own hands. I feel like that guy.

At least I’ve been sleeping. Deep, peaceful sleep. I slept so good this afternoon. We were both pretty wiped because of the heat. It felt good but at the same time, the blast furnace of the sun just sucks the energy right out of me. Next week I’ve got to go to the doc again, try another anti-depressant & get my Elavil refilled. Maybe a slightly lower dose, too. I still feel like my soul is sitting in a small jar somewhere inaccessible, and no one will give me access to salt. Of course, I don’t even know what the salt is that will free my ti bon ange.