as close as you dare
I AM ONLY DOING AN OKAY JOB
A week or so ago I attended one of my very sporadic yoga classes—this was a fancy one with candles and live music and I took it with a friend. It was fine but the instructor was way too proud of us. Oh you’re doing great. Good breathing! Oh feel that stretch, yeah? You all are fabulous. I do empathize with yoga instructors and the very difficult task they have trying to provide the right kind of experience for everyone; I bet Yoga People are much more demanding/particular about that than, like, bootcamp people, who mostly just want to exercise and leave. Probably some people in my class felt extra-supported and peaceful through all the affirmations. I felt patronized, and maybe kind of giggly when complimented on my breathing. Thanks! I’ve been doing it a long time!
Afterwards the friend and I went down the street for beer because toxins out, toxins in.
NOT EVERYONE LIKES ME (IT’S OKAY)
The yoga friend is someone from work. A few recent happenings (hello vagueblogging!) have sent me into Introspective Mode re: friendships. The hurdles to havng adult friends are a total meme-cliche at this point, but for me the difficulties, such as they are, are more about my own strengths and limitations, about what I want from friends and how to go about getting it. I have worked at my place of employment a long-ass time; I am an indifferent happy-hour-attender, a rare lunch-goer, and probably have a reputation as a bit of a crab or weirdo. Nonetheless, there are a few people who like me and I like them, and we do things outside of work, and I don’t need to be on guard or watch what I say because we trust each other.
In contrast, I moved to my neighborhood nearly a decade ago and right away started meeting a large network of people (women) who seemed fun. Who seemed to do things together; and how convenient to do things in your neighborhood! I attended a few of the things. The things were moderately fun. I mentally started to put a few of the people on the “maybe a friend” list. But it turned out that their group was possibly not as open as it first seemed, and now sometimes on my infrequent Facebook visits I will see large groups of these people getting together, in the neighborhood, for holidays or wine and I live on the same street, but: sure.
My point is: that is fine! It would not have been fine when I was younger. I would have been wondering how exactly I screwed up in the previous get-togethers. I would have been paranoid or defensive that different life circumstances (working full-time, having an only child, not having given birth, being newer to move here, etc) meant that I was being excluded on purpose. I may have been sad or self-loathing, or I may have been all like FUCK THOSE BITCHES and carried a full, simmering pot of Resentment Glögg in my heart that constantly threatened to spill over. But now I am old and I think, Oh well, those were not the droids friends you were looking for. That is fine. (I am saying that it’s fine too much and I’m worried you won’t believe me. It really is fine!)
It still seems that the very best adult friendships are the utterly bizarre “instant connection” ones, where I am drawn to someone in person or online, and eventually one of us writes the awkward email or direct message that goes like this: “Hey we should do something in person/without our spouses/when we’re a little more sober than this.” Boom, instant real true friend. I guess it is the adult version of meeting on the playground or at camp.
I AM SCARED! AND ANGRY! AND ANGRY! AND SCARED!
Hey wait I actually do have a reason to be miffed at my neighbors, or at least at one of their creatures, and it is not the least bit friendship-related!
There is an outdoor (pet) cat that roams around my block. I disagree with this for so many reasons (we live in CHICAGO it is not a FARM), but let’s not start that now. The point is, this cat likes to be in my yard. It sometimes poops in my yard, and I clean that up, swearing the whole time.* Seeing this cat through the windows upsets my indoor cat trio greatly—particularly Murphy, who has grown into a giant absolute unit of a 2-year-old boy cat but (I suspect) still feels a little insecure about his place in the cat pack.
Cats are very stupid. There literally is something called redirected aggression where something scary happens (another cat, a bookcase falling over) and all of a sudden all the cats are panicking and acting like they have never met their sibling cats ever in their whole lives. Outdoor cat startled Murphy by being actually on my windowsill, looking in, and Murphy lost his damn mind. There was hissing and worse, SCREAMING. He attacked Rocko (who also started screaming, no surprise). He attacked Lola. Everyone got all tangled up in a bad spot, near the staircases and some interior doors, where there is no easy escape. Rocko freaked out even harder and attacked MY KID. Aaron was literally standing on a chair in the home office swatting at a snarling ball of Rocko-fur with a throw pillow, and he still got scratched and received a hole in his pants. Eventually I shoved Murphy down into the basement but—I am not kidding—it took almost 48 very tedious hours to reintroduce all the cats. All would seem calm and then Rocko or Lola would walk around the corner, making Murphy puff up like HOLY FUCK WHO IS THAT. All this drama because somebody would rather keep their cat outside. Come on man.
*There was a recent Reddit thread about how to keep your house smelling good if you have pets, and the number of people who said, “My cat goes outside to poop” really started to irritate me. I have a hunch you don’t ALL live in the woods, miles from neighbors! Guess where your cat is pooping? My yard!
(NOT) HAMMER TIME
Although it’s a very old true-crime story, sometimes I think about the woman who strangled her hitman. He was kind of a dumb hitman, picking a hammer as his hitman weapon. So messy! So inconvenient! So personal! Was that the hitman’s choice, or was the husband a gross weirdo who wanted that? And why would you want that? Anyway, it is good that the hitman did (bring a dumb weapon), and it is good that Susan survived and that the husband went to jail. As for the hitman, I guess you reap what you motherfucking sow. I bet that guy had an outdoor cat.
—mimi smartypants, professional rhombus.