I'm in great shape
Apr. 12th, 2005 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistI said before that it seems like there are two of me. An English one, and a USian one. Being here again has only reinforced that. When I ride the trams or talk to Andrew's parents or buy milk at the shop around the corner where I shopped a million times, it doesn't feel like the first time in months that I've done these things. It feels more like I just dreamt the intervening adventures on the other side of the Atlantic.
Of course, that last sentence was equally true when I was back in Minnesota. Sometimes I think I have the memory of a goldfish. I just can't decide if that's a good thing or not...
I don't deal with the transition well, though, so maybe I'm not just dreaming after all. Oh, I'm fine when there are people around and things going on—my Twin Cities friends and my London friends (along with some weird guy who came down to London from Manchester for the weekend) ensured that I was good and happy for a few days before and after my latest transatlantic journey. But things calmed down when Andrew and I got home last Monday afternoon. Finding the DVD player would play music but not movies, we ended up listening to Smile as we lay on the couch. And I was fine for a while, but then, though still not consciously thinking of anything but the music, I started to cry. I was dismayed but not really surprised at this. I think that was true of Andrew, too; he knows me too well by now not to expect this sort of thing.
But he worries about me, of course. And he feels bad. Anything less than my complete happiness he seems to regard as a failure on his part. I tell him this is silly—worse, it's bad for him because he's dooming himself to disappointment if he thinks this way, for I, like everyone else, am far from completely happy—but of course he persists. He's stubborn, but also irritatingly sweet. How do you yell at someone for wanting you to be happy? I can't do it.
It's not really just the absence of fun and parties that made me cry ... though loneliness is a part of it. Mostly the loneliness, the absence of distraction, gives me time to think about Things Better Left Alone. Like a certain question I used to get asked by people trying to make small talk with me and finding it nearly impossible because I'm not doing any of the things—school, work, (deities forbid!) having babies, etc.—people my age are expected to do which give other people topics for polite conversation with them. So they ask me "What are you going to do there?"
In the shortest term, the answer is difficult because it is so simple. I will do nothing. I cannot work in the UK. I'm certainly not going back to school, anywhere on this planet, very soon. We don't have a lot of money, and I don't even get to see Andrew much because he works all day and his commute is absurdly long.
When he reads this, Andrew's going to say "YOU SHOULD BE A WRITER!" because he always says that when I do this. That's one reason that having him around is good for me: he'll kick my ass until that actually happens.
By the way, Smile actually ended up being a really great thing for him to be playing when I got all weepy and stuff, though I think it didn't help my mood much because it is an exception to that rule I mentioned above about feeling like no time has passed. I didn't hear any of that music in the time I was back in Minnesota, and hearing it again now made it feel for some reason like about a million years had passed. And I'd wasted them all.
Anyway, that's not the really great part. The really great part is that just as I was starting to feel a little better again, a song called "I'm in Great Shape" started playing. It goes like this:
"Oh, and 'Columnated ruins domino' makes sense?" Andrew said.
"I think it's just because the few lines before it do make sense," I said. "Jump out of bed, eggs and grits, okay, fine. It lulls me into a false sense of security."
So I wiped the tears and snot from my face with the back of my hand, and went on talking about nothing.
P.S. I wrote this several days ago, so it's not quite as immediate as it might be. I feel pretty good at the moment, so you don't have to worry about reassuring me. I still thought it should be written, though.
Of course, that last sentence was equally true when I was back in Minnesota. Sometimes I think I have the memory of a goldfish. I just can't decide if that's a good thing or not...
I don't deal with the transition well, though, so maybe I'm not just dreaming after all. Oh, I'm fine when there are people around and things going on—my Twin Cities friends and my London friends (along with some weird guy who came down to London from Manchester for the weekend) ensured that I was good and happy for a few days before and after my latest transatlantic journey. But things calmed down when Andrew and I got home last Monday afternoon. Finding the DVD player would play music but not movies, we ended up listening to Smile as we lay on the couch. And I was fine for a while, but then, though still not consciously thinking of anything but the music, I started to cry. I was dismayed but not really surprised at this. I think that was true of Andrew, too; he knows me too well by now not to expect this sort of thing.
But he worries about me, of course. And he feels bad. Anything less than my complete happiness he seems to regard as a failure on his part. I tell him this is silly—worse, it's bad for him because he's dooming himself to disappointment if he thinks this way, for I, like everyone else, am far from completely happy—but of course he persists. He's stubborn, but also irritatingly sweet. How do you yell at someone for wanting you to be happy? I can't do it.
It's not really just the absence of fun and parties that made me cry ... though loneliness is a part of it. Mostly the loneliness, the absence of distraction, gives me time to think about Things Better Left Alone. Like a certain question I used to get asked by people trying to make small talk with me and finding it nearly impossible because I'm not doing any of the things—school, work, (deities forbid!) having babies, etc.—people my age are expected to do which give other people topics for polite conversation with them. So they ask me "What are you going to do there?"
In the shortest term, the answer is difficult because it is so simple. I will do nothing. I cannot work in the UK. I'm certainly not going back to school, anywhere on this planet, very soon. We don't have a lot of money, and I don't even get to see Andrew much because he works all day and his commute is absurdly long.
When he reads this, Andrew's going to say "YOU SHOULD BE A WRITER!" because he always says that when I do this. That's one reason that having him around is good for me: he'll kick my ass until that actually happens.
By the way, Smile actually ended up being a really great thing for him to be playing when I got all weepy and stuff, though I think it didn't help my mood much because it is an exception to that rule I mentioned above about feeling like no time has passed. I didn't hear any of that music in the time I was back in Minnesota, and hearing it again now made it feel for some reason like about a million years had passed. And I'd wasted them all.
Anyway, that's not the really great part. The really great part is that just as I was starting to feel a little better again, a song called "I'm in Great Shape" started playing. It goes like this:
Freshened air around my headAnd, just as I did last summer and fall, I said, "Agriculture! Why 'agriculture'? I don't get it!" That line had always gotten to me. I'd forgotten about it, though, so I probably sounded just like I did when I heard it the first time.
Mornings tumble out of bed
Eggs and grits and lickety-split
Look at me jump!
I'm in the great shape of the agriculture...
"Oh, and 'Columnated ruins domino' makes sense?" Andrew said.
"I think it's just because the few lines before it do make sense," I said. "Jump out of bed, eggs and grits, okay, fine. It lulls me into a false sense of security."
So I wiped the tears and snot from my face with the back of my hand, and went on talking about nothing.
P.S. I wrote this several days ago, so it's not quite as immediate as it might be. I feel pretty good at the moment, so you don't have to worry about reassuring me. I still thought it should be written, though.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 10:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 10:25 am (UTC)Almost none of the Smile lyrics make sense to me. Maybe that's why I like "Vegetables"; it at least has the decency to actually be about vegetables.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 10:27 am (UTC)I do get a vague sense of decline from the whole thing, but yes, it's not something one can actually pin down as meaning.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 11:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 03:29 pm (UTC)Van Dyke is a much better writer now than he was back in the 60s.
Just so you know...
Date: 2005-04-13 12:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 10:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 12:45 pm (UTC)Should they be left alone? In my experience, they only are because we're too afraid, or the issue too painful. But the more we look away, the faster we run. Until running is all we can do.
Of course, you know this well about me.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 12:24 pm (UTC)Of course not. It's only the future of my whole life here; of course I should think about it. But it's huge and vague and I feel tiny and scared when faced with it, so I try to think about it as little as possible. Even though I know it's not good for me. But I don't even know what else to do these days, where to even start...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 01:54 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're doing well.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-12 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 11:43 am (UTC)Having lost my job, I may paradoxically be online slightly more for a while...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 05:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 12:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 05:14 pm (UTC)Oh, and you'd agree to help us on our plan to take over the world using small, hyperintelligent monkies.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-13 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-15 08:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-15 11:47 am (UTC)