Perfectly Imperfect

One of the most beautiful things about being human is that none of us can claim with actual certainty that we are perfect. There are those who strive to live up to some sense of perfection that they think could be obtainable.. and there are those who are misguided and really think they're beyond working at it cuz they're already there, but most of us realize that sort of goal is unrealistic and trying to get there simply results in a vast amount of disappointment.. so we sort of just skip all that overachieving.. I mean.. God.. isn't that exhausting?

So here I am, Miss D herself, not far from my 34th birthday and I'm not perfect. However, I can feel a new sense of realization - it's like a learning I can feel moment by moment... a sort of Alice-thru-the-looking-glass-warpy feeling or even the clichéd lightbulb turning on (however dim), but it's happening and it's .. well, not easy, but it's definitely acknowledged as a good thing. I mean, who are we if we don't assume that there is still much more to learn, much more to grow from in life than we already know so that we may actually become better people? We're stupid to be so arrogant - and by we, I mean the general public, which by the way, isn't anyone I know since all my friends realize we're proud to be The Mistake Makers and revel in what we learn from the many we make.. and by revel I mean, you know... getting ragingly drunk and crying our eyes out.. but same diff..

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah.. back to saying that we can't be so arrogant to think we have nothing left to learn about ourselves or those around us. And it's so true that the older you get the more you realize how little you do know.. and you shouldn't have said those things to your mother when you were 17 and you shouldn't have called your boss at the cafe a coke addict even if that was actually true cuz he wasn't worth the breath you spent to say it, and you should've said 'I love you' more often, etc., etc. And you just accept your fallibility more readily as you age cuz you know what? It's ok.

Take, for example, what I'm trying to accomplish in my love life.. or rather, what I call my 'love' life when there's no actual love per se really in it.. trying to clumsily learn how to protect myself by keeping everyone a little more at arm's length and continuing to see more than one lucky guy at a time.. (I can hear you commenting out there.. shhh..) My theory is - and stop me if you've already thought of this - that if I can keep myself a bit more at a distance rather than running full speed into something that burns out in a matter of weeks, I'll really get to know who I'm seeing, creating more of a solid base built on friendship and just general 'in like' and 'you make me so happy' feelings and then nothing feels rushed and suddenly, after some undetermined amount of time (and I'm still not sure how to well.. determine that part), that plain old dating evolves into something real that might last a while.. or a lifetime.. who knows.. and tho I have no fucking clue what I'm doing.. it's mostly going rather nicely.

The one side effect of this that, you know, should be obvious, is that I'm not getting very close to anyone. Yes, quite the quandry - keep them at a distance = unclose.. hm.. who'd have thunk? I know, so I'm a little naive, but it's not like I'm not spending time.. I mean.. there's tiiiiiime.. and it's spent.. like.. over tiiiime... so why do I feel I may just shoot myself in the foot here and maintain a distance so well the 'dating' simply boils down to a lot of drinks and dinners out and half-watched movies interrupted by 45, maybe 57, minutes of highly aerobic and horizontal physical activity??? I don't know.. it's just a feeling.. But the point is these relationships aren't ideal.. well, not my ideal or what I'm used to, but it changes my perspective and sometimes you have to shake things up in your world like it's one of those snow globes.. and everything settles around you differently and maybe in that you find the answer to whatever it is you've been wondering for so long...um.. whatever that is.. sorta..

Outside the romantic hopes I have my friends, who, in my opinion, should be stability personified.. I should never doubt them in any regard or question why I've put them in the category of 'friends' cuz how I understand it, they accept me and I accept them and that's that. But - and you knew there was a 'but' coming - when you spend some time reflecting on.. oh.. the last year of your life.. and maybe the fact that some serious time was wasted on going around and around with someone that just has no idea or solid definition of what it takes to be a friend, do you let them go or try to help them understand what you need from them? Thank you, but we only have minimal time for all your opinions in this short bit that is my personal prattling on so I'll just tell you what I think.. since you're here for that anyway.. You work at it. This is my one gold nugget of advice everyone should at least try to heed - unless of course you think all your efforts are as worthwhile as banging your head against a wall.. then of course, maybe put on a helmet or stop once you notice the bleeding.. but the idea is that you have faults and they have faults but goddamn there is no 'opt out' box when things get complicated! Why? Say it with me.. cuz that is NOT the definition of a friend... unless you're in Bizarro World, which is where I thought I was recently, but hi.. I wasn't..

And just in case you thought, 'Hey.. this girl has no idea what she's talking about..', which is true most of the time, I'll give you that, but let's just go quickly to www.dictionary.com and I'll show you..

• friend ( P ) Pronunciation Key (frnd)n.
  1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
  2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
  3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
  4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.
  5. Friend A member of the Society of Friends; a Quaker.

Ok.. so the Quaker part was certainly news to me.. but hey isn't that exciting that we could all be Quakers? That's sorta fun, isn't it? Ok.. just saying.. geez..

Ali (see: definition above, #3 to be exact), in his attempt to comfort me on my recent dismissal by someone I considered a good friend, offered this little tidbit, "You can't take stock at the end of every business day and determine who is and isn't your friend because they should be taken as a whole and every once in a while you look on the relationship you have with that person and you say to yourself.. yeah, he's alright."

Well..hmm.. it sounded wise to me at the time.. maybe you had to be there.. but I get it.. pffft..

So, to recap what we've learned in this chapter: Angel is not perfect, we should realize we don't know everything, dating a few people is kinda tricky, not as tricky as say making balloon animals, but hey, it's something new, friends suck if they simply give up on you and therefore aren't friends at all, and Ali is a sweetheart who's advice is probably sorely misquoted.. oh and you too can be a Quaker.

Yes, that's quite a bit to absorb so I should let you get to it. But I leave you with one more little gem of a quote I think is quite sweet:

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect
person perfectly. --Sam Keen

Or as Stuart Smalley used to say, 'I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me!' Don't ever change, baby..

The weekend of Mom

Well, I knew it was coming. It's been quite a while and finally nearing the time a visit to Mom's was going to be required. You people out there may not miss these cute puppy-dog eyes of mine, but my mother sure does. You know how I know? Guilt trips. LOTS of them. Here - let me give you a shining and recent example of my mother's inherent ability to lay the smackdown on her unsuspecting offspring. This was one of our recent phone conversations:

*phone rings on my way to work about 7:45am*

Me: Hello?
Mom: Hey, it's Mom. You up and at 'em?

*Mom always thinks I'm lazy and sleeping in on a regular basis - even on weekdays when I like.. um.. have to work.. like at 8am.. like.. BE there AT 8. I don't get how she still doesn't realize this sometimes.. It was like a Tuesday for chrissakes..*

Me: Yup, as usual..what's up?

*Now..wait for it.. waaaaaaaaiiiit..*

Mom: Oh just thought I'd call my children since they must not love me at all cuz neither of them ever call me..

And BAM! There it is! Just fucking blatant, isn't she? Holds nothing back. And why should she? She is a mother after all... my mother... and she wouldn't be my mother if she didn't know how to unabashedly place a good top-of-the-morning-guilt-trip phone call. Nope. I mean, I didn't even see it coming. Barely had my chai ingested enough to allow the caffeine to hit and wallop! Hits me right over the head as if she was sitting right next to me. The woman has no mercy... but she does have a gift.. what can I say? And it's all mine. Oh yeah.. I know you're jealous.

So I combined my trip to visit college friends in Portland, where I'd see the second production of their fledgling theatre company, Third Rail Repertory, and mixed it with a short but sweet visit with Mom and Gram. Keith, one of my best friends and former roommates in college, came with me to make the trip since our friend Stephanie, who owns Third Rail with her husband, was also one of our friends and roommates back in the heyday of our undergrad theatre training.

He and I piled into the car last Thursday night and took off down the long and dreary path south to Oregon.. seriously.. most boring drive ever.. not just embellishing for, you know, writing style here.. dull dull dull. And, wouldn't you know it.. after the recent month long ebola like illness I've had.. I get yet another fucking cold. No really.. I'm not kidding you. Half way thru the drive I couldn't breathe thru my nose anymore, was popping Alka-Seltzer cold meds when I could, but the plague that wouldn't die was re-setting in and hitting me hard. Thank God we didn't have to drive further than Portland that night. I think I was hallucinating at one point cuz I was so tired.. uh yeah.. good stopping point there.

We stayed at Tim's house, another former college friend of Keith's and someone I slightly knew from back then, but he was a few years older and had graduated before me. He and his wife couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating - even had toast and juice with echinacea for sickly little me in the rather bright morning the next day. We said our thank you's, I dropped Keith off in downtown Portland for an audition he had arranged with Portland Center Stage and said I'd see him later that night for Steph's play. Then I was off to meet Mom in Salem.

Ok.. here is the best part about my mother - despite her brazen guilt trips.. she frickin loves me. To. Pieces. Yes, she does. Hell, they adopted me. They HAD to love me one would think. And I walked into the store where she works, practically falling asleep where I stood in all my not-breathing-and-sniffling grandeur.. and instantly she takes charge and is leading me down the vitamin and cold remedy aisles filling her arms up with what I must have and what she must buy me.. and am I going to stop her? Um.. do I LOOK stupid?! Ok.. don't answer that.. but hi.. no! And she took me out to lunch and we had peppermint tea and went back to her house to visit Gram and they both told me to lie down and rest and they'd wake me up when it was time for us to go and it was so nice and ahh.. that's what I felt right then.. just...ahh..

Now please don't confuse my house with one where sweetness oozes out of the grandma and mother figures, where cookies are made daily and affirmations are read and cheeks pinched.. cuz honey, let's be honest - it' ain't that. Both Mom and Gram are where I get my firecracker sass and sailor-like mouth, not to mention all the guilt-tripping talent one could dream of, but they have their moments where I'm the baby and they take good care of me and when you're an adult and you have roommates and house meetings and friends who can't decide if they want to be your friend anymore and 19 orders to enter at work and boys who want to date you but don't want to get much closer than that and car trouble and heartburn...... home with the family can be really really great.

After a much needed nap, Mom and I head back up to Portland to see Stephanie's production of John Patrick Shanley's, Dirty Story. I knew nothing about this at all other than it was a comedy and thought Mom would enjoy it. We said hello's to Steph and after promising to see her at intermission, made our way to our seats and waited to be awed.

Um.. first let me say.. Mom and I both didn't get the first act.. tho in her defense I caught her falling asleep a few times. But I was completely awake and still .. it wasn't sinking in what the hell was going on. I felt a bit stupid.. but thought, ohmygod.. please let the rest of the play get better.. what to say if it didn't?! At the beginning of intermission I had an uber quick mini pow wow with Mom where we spoke but barely moved our lips at how she wasn't allowed to say anything negative, we were there to support Stephanie, even if it sucked and she nodded her head in agreement like we were a TEAM I tell you.. then went to visit and talked about anything but the play. But hey, the 2nd act improved drastically and by the end I had this 'ah ha!' moment and figured out it was all political and the people were symbolic of countries and it was about the issues between Israel and Palestine and *yaaaaawwwwwn* I know.. you're getting bored and falling asleep on me right now... but really, it picked up and was very funny and smart tho I wish I could've figured out the symbolism earlier.. and you know.. gotten it in the first act.

Afterwards, we chatted it up with the old college friends I hadn't seen in easily 10+ years, one who said I looked great and I said he did too, even tho I thought to myself.. wow, you've really let yourself go buddy.. and it serves you right for dumping me way back then and using me to cheat on your then girlfriend whom I didn't know about and well, here we are and la di da! Again.. this was ALL in my head.. vivid imagination I have.. um.. yes..*ahem*

AND then it was time to go.. and we had the SLOWEST drive home of my life cuz Mom was driving. I swear time went backwards while in the car and I think I may have gotten younger. But God forbid I drive cuz all it takes is going over 25mph and the woman would white-knuckle it all the way home and make up things like they just passed a law that they'll now be giving out traffic tickets for those who run yellow lights.. Um.. ok Mom.. whatever color the sky is in your world.. She has so used that on me before tho.. I swear.

And that was that! The plague finally left the next day after some rest and breathing normally resumed. After playing with the 2 cats and 3 dogs who live in the house, I decided to forego the rest of the petting zoo on the farm this time, saving it for Thanksgiving. You think I'm lying... come with me sometime and you'll see they could charge some serious cash to play with the llamas, miniature donkeys and goats that they have in the field. The ad could read: 'Useless Animals! Come Pet Them For Only $5! If You Lose A Finger, No Refunds!' But that's another story.. Shunning the tall and short furry things that spit, I left the small town country side to pick up Keith in Portland and head back home to the metropolis of good old Seattle.. and.. somehow I have to tie this up cleverly, but it's late and I can't think of anything.. so um.. hey.. call your mother. She misses you.

Restoration

Ahh.. recovery. It's a great feeling not to be ill anymore. Ok, well, almost not ill. I'm functional and certainly not as sick as I have been the last two weeks. My voice is coming back from the dead, which is such a relief for someone who's a talker and singer in cars and such. Really - losing my voice is equatable to losing a limb. It's that paralyzing for me. Girl needs to express herself audibly and that's just a tad difficult when you sound like a mute. An adorable one, hopefully, but mute nonetheless. I'm sure some people might've actually been grateful for the quiet.

SO.. what has happened with me in the few weeks before the global warming type cold took over and ravaged my unsuspecting self you might ask..? Well.. you might..

Believe it or not, all of 5'3" of yours truly was in a fashion show for starters. These were designs created by my lovely friend Kam who has some strange and quirky ideas, but they were really fun when put together and hey, she asked me to pretend I was a model for an evening. The extroverted attention whore in me could hardly turn her down.

The big night took place at Barca, a Capital Hill bar where our other friend, Wazhma, pulled her popularity strings and secured. Of course, as soon as I arrived, I situated my purse near the back wall where the only crack the size of Texas seemed to be and I watched it fall and take its little tumble turning upside down dropping everything that was important, like uh, helloo.. lip gloss.. into an unretrievable hole. Did I almost completely panic? Uh yeah. Luckily, the owner was there and after quickly surmising said idiotic move by moi, he actually busted a hole in the wall down below and retrieved the things that were actually more important than lip gloss like, oh, my KEYS and my rather spendy little number of a DIGITAL CAMERA.. But lip gloss was really was a slight priority seeing that I was going to be parading around in tights and stuff in front of strangers you know.. geez..

After that bit of distraction, the evening went on rather smoothly. Of course, none of us had ever done any modeling, but we all figured we'd watched America's Next Top Model enough that we probably had it down. Oh yeah.. like it's hard.. But then the 'real' models showed up.. If you think by 'real' models I mean bitches, then yeah, you're on the right track. But being the non-traditional type models we were, we decided to go against type, be ourselves, and just drank ourselves silly - mostly to calm our nerves a little. We got down with our bad selves in our funky designer clothes and our fabulous printed rubber boots (mine were pink polka-dotted) and cheered when we were done - very unlike the other, rather stoic, 'real' models who had very little to express other than their disdain for us, which we thought was rather humorous. But I do have to admit, most of those girls looked good. But, you know if Tyra wants to give me a call.. I might consider it... maybe..I mean, modeling's ok.. I guess.

Two days later, my best friend, Fatima, was married. This was something I was so excited to be involved in as they'd chosen to keep the ceremony very small with only their families present and a few, carefully chosen, good friends. I felt honored she'd asked me to attend. But the day before the wedding, she sort of.. stressed me out. God love Fatima.. and I mean, I love this girl, she's family to me, but she was very concerned about the relationship between her fiance and me... cuz there isn't one.. like, at all. I can count on both hands how many times, and probably close to as many minutes, I've spent in the same room with him in the last year and half they've been together. She once thought I didn't like him, which wasn't the case. We just don't know each other well and have nothing in common other than the fact we both love her to pieces. And after 'hi, how are you?' and 'goodbye'.. um.. I'm stumped on what else to discuss.

So the day before the wedding, she emailed me asking me to make sure there wouldn't be any tension for me regarding the fiance and I'm pretty confused at this point cuz I thought we'd already settled this some time ago. And tho I do want her to be honest with me and I understand this bothered her, it sort of made me a nervous wreck. I mean, I wasn't thinking ANYTHING like that WHATSOEVER and after her call, that's ALL I could think about. So, you can see where this was going..

I was on edge all day of the wedding wondering if I looked alright, if I would say anything wrong, or do anything stupid cuz that's just me. Overthinking = lots of trying too hard not to make a mistake which = making lots and LOTS of mistakes. I didn't get so drunk I made a pass at her husband or dance on the table or anything like that. I just didn't say the things she wanted to hear - even when I said she looked beautiful, cuz truly, she was absolutley stunning, she didn't hear me anyway and that STILL put her off for a good 30 minutes. So whether I said the right thing or not, it wasn't working for me. I just wanted everything to be perfect for her and I already knew she was strained with all the family in town and every other detail she had to deal with, but nothing I could say or do seemed right or calmed her at all. I should've relaxed, I should've taken the chance I wouldn't have been a complete drunken fool and just drank more, but as it was, I tried to keep my flustered self restrained and quiet and kept to my two-drink minimum.

The ceremony was really beautiful. At one point, I could tell they were just SO into each other it almost became uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong - love was doing the usual oozing out of their very pores I'm sure, but I almost tapped her on the shoulder to ask, 'uh.. are we intruding?' I thought for sure they were going to grab each other and make out right there - but of course, they didn't. They were very sweet honestly, but when I left, I was a little sad thinking for some reason, her and I had suddenly grown apart. We talked about a week later and cleared the air cuz I knew it wasn't just all in my mind - but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd thought. Weddings just make people crazy. I'm never doing it.. ok.. well, maybe not never..

With all the lovey dovey thoughts running thru my head, the following weekend my other best friend, Loren, and I headed up to Vancouver, BC. We'd both become fairly sick with the nasty cold I've already discussed, but thought we could spend the time relaxing anywhere - so why stay in Seattle when we could run away for the weekend to Canada? We figured the change was bound to heal us! Well, ok, it didn't - in fact, I was completely worse by Monday morning, but the inbetween was well worth it. We dined, met up with friends, shopped when necessary - all the things you're supposed to do when on a mini vacation. Including spending time with exes. What? You don't see your ex on your vacations? Oh..well, um.. when you've dated all of Seattle and half of BC... you know..

Ali's just a given part of my life. Probably the one person I'll always love no matter what. I can't say for sure why we didn't last other than the distance between here and Vancouver wasn't good for either of us - but we could've been something big for each other. I mean, we were.. but sometimes I wonder why there are these people you never get out of your system, and for whatever reason, love just isn't enough to keep you together. It doesn't help that every time I see him my old crush is renewed and I'm reminded how great we were years ago. BUT, and there's always a 'but', this is how it's supposed to be. Really. We aren't a good match over a long period of time. We even tried again a couple of years after, but I think he only did it to humor me and it quickly burned out. So we figured out how to maintain a close friendship and I tell him he's off limits to the rest of the female population and he feigns jealousy when I'm dating someone new.. Still, it's not a bad thing for my ego, when someone has recently dumped me, to know there's always Ali, who never ceases to be amazed why a guy would be so stupid as to leave me. Call me crazy, but I love that he does that for me. He recognizes the irony in his own statement.. but again, this is how it should be and I kiss him and BC goodbye til next time.

So I had a few challenging adventures before this last week of invalid hell - and tho I've been miserable health-wise and sounded more like a female Tom Waits, my spirits have been up. I have a few new things to wear, a restored ego simply from my choice of company, and I just feel like I can breathe easier. The winter is looking decidely brighter..