There is something narcissistic about blogging. Who really cares about what I think or what I feel, and most of my peeps email me and ask me how I'm doing anyway, so who is reading this? Then, I've come to the realization that for me, it is about the writing. What is it about the ka-zillions of ways you can put words together along with thoughts that have an endless flow of creation? I never particularly liked school. Having ADHD makes it hard to care about a square root or dangling participle. I was also social yet extremely shy, which is the contradiction that I live with today. I find humor in everything and yet find the seriousness of life gripping to me. It is difficult finding others who understand those opposing traits.
My mother was frustrated continuously by my inability to concentrate and so I ended up in art classes. Not a bad fit, but I think she may have underestimated my love to learn. I read philosophy blogs daily and have gotten to know some pretty heady people. I listen mostly, but if they enter my mommy-bailiwick, watch out. There are many philosophers who have taken their headiest ideas from a mom changing diapers. You learn patience, unconditional love, and you get to go to school several more times... not too shabby. I've never really gotten the math thing, which is embarrassing even to this day. I was the Home Ec teacher's drop-out. As a child I didn't even want to tell time because (gasp) there were numbers on the damn thing. Half-past? Quarter-to? Or is that Haf-passed and Quarta-til? I didn't have the nerve to ask and so I spent much of high school not knowing what time it was.
It was hard being little complicated me. Hell, it is hard still being little complicated me.
So, I sit here today with poison in my veins wondering about the rest of my life. One thing my mother did give to my brother and me were unrealistic illusions of grandeur and so, unlike many suburban philosophers I feel like I could be anything I want to be. That is quite a big task considering I only have so much time to fit it all in. At one point in this writing process I thought, I will NEVER do this again. I am such a perfectionist that I make myself kind of nuts. I lost my first editor because he thinks I'm annoying and crazy. Fortunately, I found a brilliant English teacher in Turkey who helps me when I'm feeling stupid. (Thank you, Jon, John, Tabula Rasa) I haven't figured out whether he is that hot Renaissance guy in his photo or a 300 lb. terrorist with acne. I just know that he has helped with me in this witching-hour of publishing this book with no decent editor on my radar.
My brother doesn't care so much about grammar, which unnerves me. My first editor was a grammar-Nazi, which was a sheer joy to me. I have so much to learn, but I am better on-the-job than in a classroom, which is why his red pen was like an orgasm.
*orgasm*
Even now, my head wanders into the sublime and the ridiculous while trying to learn. I've mastered all the keys and their inversions on the piano, and now I'm going for jazz scales. B&D, but that's just me. There is something called a chemo-brain, but I'm going with the blood-brain barrier theory of it having no ill-effects. Many women complain of this brain-fog, but most women around here don't pick up a book, or torture themselves trying to publish a book when they aren't a writer. That takes concentration. I appreciate my eccentricities now more than humiliated by them. My mother would have appreciated this latest accomplishment of mine in her own way. Who knows?
I am just quite sure that there are things in life far more fascinating to learn than what's going down at Nordstrom's Rack.
Lata.
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