Yep, I Had a Very, Very Bad Week

When one feels blue, if that 'one' has a child, and if the child happens to be a daughter, one might get a bunch of these...And that thought that wasn't yours but somebody's else, it's a balm.



So, another week had passed. I could just think that, would be enough. No need to write it in virtual stone. Especially now when my shoulder hurts so bad.

I have this old bursitis that went on for about 7 months and I pushed and lifted and pushed tons of papers ignoring the pain until a ligament in my shoulder snapped. It’s hell, but Hell is where I usually dwell, therefore I should be used to it, right? The files I work with weight a ton. That’s why they call my job bureaucratic. If you work hard, they expect you to break your back or something – literally.

Still, it was a bad week for me (apart from Obama wining, which put an ointment on all my wounds for a day).
Hurray, once in a long while, politics went my way. Not my way – my wish. Yupeeeee!
Although this would not help me much – how could it? I do belong to a category that never wins, no matter who’s at the top – God, Bush, Idi Amin, Satan, Gorbachev or Angela Merkel, St Peter or Whoever.
Does not make any difference to any Neslblandians whatsoever.
Obama wining is not going to make anyone in my world any better, but I still love him. He has a drop of Nesblandian blood somewhere – that feels familiar. It avenges me/us. I love him so much I almost wish he were a woman. But that would take another 200 years to come into being and by then I won’t be anywhere to see it with my own eyes.
I'm not a lesbian, but I would have enjoyed enormously if the USA had a female African American president - that would have been worth something! Not that this is not worth almost as much.
But still, makes one wonder how much bigot America hates women since they preferred even an African American male instead.
My-American-State-Senator-Cousin must be fumbling with rage. He did his best to convince his constituency to vote for McCain. After all, he’s a Republican, one of those anti-everything.
Not nice for me to gossip like this about my family – but who cares? My cousin is not even aware that I subscribed to his newsletter, he doesn’t even know where I live. But I like to follow his political career therefore I keep in virtual touch with his moves. Blood is thicker than water and so is curiosity.
That’s my luck – my father was a Nazi, my cousin is a bit of a bigot and I am a Nesblandian with no family ties.
How sad.

So my week went bad.
I lost my favorite Ronson cigarette case. (That was a Bad Sign!) I sat on a bench at lunch, had a smoke and then left it there. Went back later, it was gone, of course.
That cigarette case had been with me for a long time, we went through a lot together. We were inseparable. It was my bitch.

The next day I bought one of those bus tickets that cover me for a week to travel back and forth to work. After work I sometimes go shopping for urgent necessities and I must have lost it when I pulled out my card to pay for those groceries.

Then the next day to that, my boss told me that next year, my job might go, so I better start to look for work now, since they’ll have for sure massive budget cuts. My contract might not be renewed.
Yeah. That figures.
Nobody wants to have around in a bloody office a woman my age with an accent and a bad shoulder, not even for the worst paid job in the goddamn country.

Besides, I am boring now. I bore myself. I bore the life out of me – too much goes wrong, I’m losing my sense of humor. I feel it when I write. I feel it now, here, in this long moment.
It used to be different before – I still could laugh, and when I did, many laughed with me. I was much younger. They paid attention to what I did/said/was wearing. They acknowledged my opinions/existence/advice/presence. They did not mind my accent – “it was sweet/funny/interesting”.
I do not know what men found in me then – most of them thought and said I was too smart for a gal. What was that supposed to mean? Something mean, of course. But then I did not care.
I think I was smart. Too many told me that a bit too often. I started to almost believe them. But I had balls then, balls of steel. They melted in the heat of trying not to be a Nesblandian so much. To blend within. To show “flexibility’. To be more like their women – “sweeter” so to speak.
Men were totally taken by me then – I never knew why – I wasn’t a beauty or anything. I was average looking and slim. Nothing more. Must have been my age and my slimness. Did not even have the bust for them to care, really. My nose was too flat. My eyes not large enough. My lips too skinny. I was sarcastic at about level 9 on a Richter scale, and loved my own sarcasm with a vengeance. I was witty, loud, outgoing. An extrovert.
Inside, some scared introvert was hiding but tat was my masculine side – my “other” – the one that comes out while I’m asleep and tells me things, so I could fix whatever needs fixing. I keep in touch with him all the time.

And then I started aging. That’s OK when you are aware and at peace with it – even if your bosses are always men. But what is happening if you don’t feel that age, you don’t look in the mirror often enough like other gals do?
Well, you age and your soul is not aware. Your soul is busy being a soul: growing, feeling, crying, loving, pitying, sympathizing, keeping your heart in touch with it all.
You feel the same. You think like before about everything and you miss the point – people expect you to fade in the background, to start ‘aging gracefully’ = ‘don’t talk so much’. Don’t have too many opinions. Don’t express them. Don’t be a tall poppy. Don’t. DO NOT.
And I did not do all that. I still won’t.

I wasn’t quite aware the wrapping started to get ripened. I felt the same. I worked hard. I painted better than before. I started to be able to draw whatever I wanted better than anybody else around. ( Now my shoulder is killing my talented hand; it hangs almost limp and tires up so quickly, I needed a long time even to type all this rant).I took joy and pride in my drawing – regardless of trends. I like masterly things, and if I have the skill I’m creating better things than before with the same enthusiasm other people copy Pollock using a can, a nail and an unstretched piece of canvas. Not with the same financial result, but I don’t care about the critics. I don’t care either if that thing or the other “has been done before” – who cares – it hasn’t been done by me. Somebody else has done it and I have the right to feel how that feels if I do it too. IT FEELS GOOD. Perhaps you should try it too if you want to understand, really.
You might not like what it makes me feel good but I do. I need some things that make me feel good so I keep going, instead of jumping off a cliff. In need to keep the balance.
I know that, because I have an analytical mind, and I like scratching the surface all the time. The surface of things means nothing to me, except that it shows only one superficial dimension. It doesn’t show the weight or the depth of anything.
Without knowing the depth and the weight, things appear to be just volatile. Volatility might be OK in the Big Scheme of Things when we look at the Universe through a Hobble telescope, but it’s not OK in my Nesblandian Anthill.
My Nesblandian Anthill’s Policy revolves around trivially-majestic things au rez-de-chausée.
I am just human (and proud of it more or less – depending on what context the word is used).

So, I still watched the world and weighted it on the same scale even if I started to wrinkle a bit. I was full of History and stories. I still am. And I continue to fill up to the brim. That’s why I'm here when it spills over. Virtuality can absorb any excess – it’s like a sponge. I bleed, the virtual sponge sucks up my blood and my virtual spirit is clean and dry and has no stains.

It all went on like this until one day I came across one of those ridiculous IQ tests that float in the virtual space. There was an age category and for the first time I stopped and thought about it. Hell, no! I started reflecting and after 2 minutes of “intense intellectual effort” I decided, instead of ignoring those stupid thing as I usually do – to take it. To take the test.
But not under my age category.
I lied and selected the 25 to 35s. And made it. Made it like 10-15 years ago, somewhere above 128. A test in my third language.
I thought – fuck you all. I am still me, myself. I still got it. You won’t put me down like you'd put a horse or a dog. I can still laugh even if you people don’t laugh with me any more, but at me rather.

However, this is not going to help me keep my job.
Jobs like mine are not based on IQ tests. For my job, I am too schooled or not schooled enough, I spell too well, I know too much about too many things that others don't, all with a foreign accent. And that is that is almost a crime. It cannot be overlooked.
Nobody could possibly like that, obviously. I must be a pain in the ass. The Big Ass of Bureaucracy. The Big Ass of the Big Brother who is my Adoptive Country. The adoptive country that fails me so often, while my life gets shorter and shorter. Stepmothers even when they are Big Brothers will be always like that, no matter what they print about their own perceptions about themselves: Glory –Glory – Alleluia…etc.

Yep, I had a very, very bad week.