Boundaries? Not really.

I have about seven minutes (perhaps less) to post before I must return to my living room and join my roommate for a back episode of Project Runway.

What's that, you ask? Nina... has a roommate?

Yes. Yes, Nina does. LAS and I are now roommates in New York City. What's that? You think it's really risky to move in with someone you met on the internet?

Well... for me, this move involved relocating about 2 miles east. For LAS, it involved relocating about 883 miles east. Bigger risk for her for sure. Plus we have been getting to know each other for... four years. That's long enough.

And what about the old advice that you should never become roommates with your best friend?

Well... this is about the most uncomplicated and unconfusing decision I have ever made in my life. I have no doubt this is going to work out, whatever smart people might say about boundaries. LAS has been here a week and we are having tons of fun.

So how are all of you?

Facebook as a form of therapy

Within twenty minutes of joining Facebook, I received a friend request from the man who holds my V card. It just got weirder from there.

My phone didn't stop all night. Bzzz.. Bzzz... Bzzz... all Facebook notifications from or regarding people I haven't seen or talked to in years - in one case, since I was eight years old. It wasn't merely that people were trying to "friend" me. It was that they were wildly encouraging the befriendment of six or seven other people I am connected to in some tenuous way. Or in some major way, like, oh fuck it, the guy after the guy with the V card.

One of the ways I have always defended myself from too much reality is by compartmentalizing things and people. I don't mix my sports friends with my literature friends. I don't mix my work friends with my drinking friends. And I definitely don't cross eras. NO! If you are from high school, you stay in high school. Stay!

You must be wondering what purpose all this organization serves, how it protects me. I'll tell you: all those people from my past have expectations about what I am supposed to be right now. And all those ideas are different. The one from when I was eight years old is still confused and hurt that I didn't marry her older brother, but mostly she is just shocked that I didn't have the imagination to get out of New York City. And if I wasn't going to marry her brother, couldn't I at least married someone?

My literature friends are all aghast that it has been two and a half years since my dad died, and I haven't submitted a draft of the manuscript for them to read. WAIT. They WOULD be aghast if were not so pissed off that I disappeared into the ether for two and a half years without informing anyone that I hadn't died. Because for while there, I bore all the hallmarks of a suicide risk, and I was not polite enough to let the literature friends or anyone else know I wasn't dead.

My online friends are just in shock that I am on Facebook and revealing my actual name because hello, anonymous blog?! Well not for long, apparently. Anyone with an IQ upwards of 80 who reads this blog could find me, and my true identity, on Facebook in less than 10 minutes.

I am really uncomfortable.

How to continue?

*sigh*

Internet, I have decided that compartmentalization is mostly bad. It is not bad in and of itself - but the way I use it is absolutely wrong. I use it to lie to people - passively. To let one group of people think one thing about me and some other group of people think some other thing. I do it to keep people at a distance, and I achieve that by creating a life where no one can ever compare notes. Even as I write this, I am thinking: what's wrong with that? Why isn't it ok to be in-person friends with X person but compartmentalize Z person into the "online" category - and stubbornly refuse to budge?

Answer: Because it's total bullshit. It serves no purpose except to protect myself from some vague idea of disappointing people or not living up to expectations. I don't want my in person friends to know that I have a freaky, post-modern life that I would never share with them. This is the honest truth: the internet is a big part of my life and my in person friends HAVE NO IDEA I HAVE A BLOG.

ALSO: I don't want the online friends to know that, really, seriously? I am 40. I have told you all this, but if you met me you'd all be like, jeez, you really are 40. And you look it.

So I hate Facebook. I hate it. All my compartments are collapsing, and I hate it. However, much as I hate it, I think it'll help me live a more honest life. Who knows: maybe I'll be brave enough to actually meet a blog person in real life this year. Or maybe I'll admit to my sports friends that I have long arguments with other people about how indirect objects work - in Russian. Maybe I'll actually contact all the people I have let believe I have fallen off the face of the earth know I am alive. OH WAIT. Facebook is doing that for me.

Have I mentioned I am uncomfortable? I am. Please comment: does any of this make sense? Or is Facebook really evil and can I please unFacebook myself and get on with my tidy little multi-celled life?

Yes, I care. I care a lot.

I can't get the snippet of code from Google Analytics to stick to the template of my blog. The error message I am getting is something like the XML code is unworthy or some crap like that.

WTF?

Was it always this hard?

The whole problem is enough to make me drink red wine and stuff my face with basmati rice.

And if you don't understand that, we really can't be friends anymore.

Um but honestly can someone help me make this work? Because I am reported to be smart and I am failing. FAIL, FAIL, FAILING.

I do love you though. I can't help myself, and love is all that matters.

(But I fucking want my stats). (Please).

Oh My Heck

So much has happened.

And yet nothing has really changed. I am the same underemployed college adjunct as I was and I have gathered no steam on the Phd front. I have only the most filmy vision of the future.

What's interesting is my total conviction that although things are not so great financially right now, they will get better. The getting better might be greatly facilitated by my getting off my ass and finding an additional job - but something (probably irresponsibility) is preventing me from taking that course. Something else seems... pending. I have started writing again suddenly, and it is not just a meandering trickle of over emotionalized clap trap about my hurt feelings or my wounded sense of entitlement. It is ever so much better than that - but I am not ready to share it yet. Soon.

I have missed you all. What happened? Well. What happened is that for a long, long time, this blog was fueled by a narrative. A story. A bad and terrible story, yes, but people want to know how it ended. Now that it has ended, good heavens what is left for us all to say to each other.

I really like to think that there is more to say. There must be more to say, because I think about you all so very much. Sizzle. LizB, KateP, LAS. All of you. But no one more than Adam Avitable. Adam, honey, I am trying to get my shit together and be a good friend. I am narcissistic and complicated and downright fearful that if you really knew me, you'd pass. But these are no excuse for my rudeness, and regardless of all other considerations, I adore you and your blog. And did I mention you?

The end.

Perfect, perfect

Item the first: Please go immediately to P's blog and lavish upon her the love and devotion that is her due. Heaven never dreamed up a more beautiful bride. I mean it. Go and give love to the most beautiful bride in the history of marital perfection.

Item the second: I had grand plans for my future. They included me never going on another date as long as I lived, vacationing every year with my friend Cossette, playing board games together until we both grew old, selecting the same retirement community and dying at precisely the same moment of some painless and unknown ailment. It was the perfect plan.

Cossette met someone. Two months ago. And guess what? She is getting married in Vegas on the 21st of September. This is not perfect for me, but I have met the man who has destroyed my life's agenda, and I must say he is perfect for her. And about that, I could not be more pleased.

So now I need someone else to grow old with. Anyone play monopoly?

Dig if you will...

OK.

It's a drawing.




This is where I am moving on Saturday. It has been a long time coming. (Don't be sad if you can't quite understand the floor plan. It confuses me too.

Since you are here, go give a big kiss to Adam, who recently moved also. Times are a' changin' for him, too.

Love,

Nina

Check, check

This is an empty post where I say little other than that I am grateful, incredibly grateful that anyone still reads this blog.  I am also grateful that I am not feeling as terrible as I felt this time last year.  Oh! 

I also went to Chicago to visit my darling LAS.  A few pictures from the trip:  

Yes, that is buttercream frosting. Good heavens.


Better, substantive post to come tomorrow. Meantime, have a cookie.

Love,

Nina

Who's with us?

Instead of writing about death all. the. time... today I will write about a conversation I had with my beloved LAS about language. About words, to be more specific - and their ability to change the way people feel. We got to talking about words today because damn it, there has been a lot of dark and stormy news coming our way lately.


After some discussion we decided we would attempt to lift the gloom by banning certain words and replacing them with others. We are starting with five:

Lame
Suck
Hate
Annoy (and all related forms)
Damn it

Lame has no acceptable substitute. Suck can be iterated as "not ideal." Hate can be expressed as "do not prefer." Annoy? Inconvenient. Damnit? No acceptable substitute.

We are going to squelch the defeatist and sad making words for a few days and see if we start feeling, well, better. Feel free to join us and comment here with your results. We need more than two people to achieve anything like statistical significance.

Happy Monday, and thank you more than ever for reading.

What we know

Some smart person somewhere said that a miracle is that which inspires faith. Many of you are already aware that my own stockpile of faith has been under serious assault since like, um, 2006, year of the bitchening. Life has been... rugged. And not at all scenic.

Yet another terrible and unexpected thing has happened, as you know: Bob, of Bob and Kate's Asylum for Wayward (Middle-Aged) Women, died this week. Of all the things I thought might happen today, Bob leaving us was in the basement. I knew he was feeling unwell but I never thought that he might be checking out.

I moved here out of necessity; I was absolutely broke after my own father died, and Bob and Kate agreed to this arrangement because they had room for another person and they thought I could be of some help. Well, I have been here three months. I have helped, I guess. Somewhat. For the most part, however, I have felt unequal to giving Bob and Kate the kind of help they really need. Bob needed someone to be available to help him 24/7. Kate needed someone to tie up loose ends and errands for her so she could care for Bill.

I did the best I could. Often I felt my best was not good enough. Many times I wondered how all this would turn out.

Shame on me. If I had been paying any kind of attention, I would have known that Bob wasn't well. If I had any kind of sense, I would see that Kate is well and able bodied and Bob was in a wheelchair. I would have seen Bob sleeping 16 hours a day and I would have noticed how little he ate.

I didn't notice any of these things because I wrongly believed that I had met my death quota for some uncalculable amount of time. DUH. And yet the DUH factor has left me feeling detached and philosophical about Bob's death, even though I feel on some level absolutely sick about it.

And then last night I came back from the funerary planning session to find that in fact, I can have two people I adore die in the same week. Lisa left us late last night.

And when I got that piece of news I cried until my contacts popped out like shrinky dinks. I have tried to explain to people who I am crying over and it all comes out wrong. "She was a person who I never met but she was awesomely funny and smart and gorgeous and wise and well, perfectly excellent. I never met her. But I want her back. Very. Badly."

No one knows this feeling except for other bloggers. My brother and his wife find it distressingly post-modern and hopelessly dorky that I have friends I have never met that I count among my top echelon of most beloved people. My in person friends who don't blog just stare at me blankly. Then they say something to the effect of: "Hold up. We went to college together. I knew you when you used to do upside funnels at frat parties. I have cleaned up your vomit. How is she like, in my weight class, friend wise?"

And I can't explain that. At least for today, I am too teary eyed and distracted. And then part of me still thinks it can't be true because I already had someone die THIS WEEK.

What the f? Seriously.

If you are of the praying kind, just say something, anything to the almighty. Say something about Bob. Say something about Lisa. Each of them were excellent examples of holding up gracefully under terrible circumstances and both, for me, inspired faith in the most rocky and unlikely territory. That makes each of them, in their different ways, a miracle.

Nina is naked

Ok, not really.

But take a look anyway:



I left here some number of months because I feared I could not speak the truth about the day to day everything going on in my life without injuring others and bringing Nina (who is, after all, me) into personal relationships with readers - and finding myself by way of such conduct - unable to live up to whatever it was I thought Nina was. I felt unequal to the challenges I saw looming ahead if I continued to write here.

That feeling of inadequacy, more rightly called ineptitude, was easy to spot (and easy to despise) when I held my own blog up against those of people who did not work so desperately hard to maintain anonymity or privacy - in other words, people grown up enough to lay it all out there and say "take it or leave it." I love their blogs and I admire their transparency. In no particular order:

Neil Kramer, famed author and standard bearer for our beloved Citizen of the Month. Neil is,first and foremost, a wonderful writer. To prevent myself from rambling further, let me say that Neilochka is what we who despair of ever finding such call a good man. Go instantly and give Neilochka the worship that is his due.

What can I say of Avitable? I have knitted the gentleman one sock - and declared it not nearly pretty enough for his excellent left (or right) foot. So I still owe Adam a pair of handmade socks. I have committed other crimes against Adam that I will not describe here. What I love most about Avitable (aside from his extremely forgiving nature) is his openness. Those of you familiar with avitable know that what you see if what you get when you read Adam's blog. He writes about any and everything and somehow manages to protect his marriage and his business from the becoming involved in the blog. I resoundingly failed at doing what he seems to do effortlessly.

Everything I just said about Adam, I want to say about Lisa. If you have followed her story, you know she is fighting cancer for the third time, and doing so in a heartbreakingly public way. And yet she, like Adam and like Neil, has managed to share her life with other people while still protecting her privacy and that of her family. Lisa's time left is limited, but she has Karl (also an excellent blogger) updating her blog. Go see these excellent folks and appreciate their greatness.

I thought I would never return here, but I do so now. Naked. (Sort of). Why? Mostly because it is time for me to grow up and take responsibility for what I have to say online. If people get pissed or run screaming away from my internet diary... *yawn. * It can't be nearly as tragic as I previously imagined. In any case, if my cover gets blown or someone figures out where I work or where I live, hell with it. I ain't Princess Diana. It's simply not that important. The blog is mine and I belong to the blog and I'll take whatever consequences arise, whatever they turn out to be.

Summary: I am back. Long time no see. I have missed you. How have you been?

Love,
Nina

What day is this?

Dear Friends who live in my computer,

It is not because I am so busy that my hair is falling out (it is). It is not because I don't care anymore (I totally do). It is not because I don't have anything to say (oh, you better believe I do). It is not because I have stopped loving you (you are about all I have left). "It" is because I am not like Avitable or Lisa or even Julie.

You see, Nina lives out there in space and her words bounce off technology of some kind (Nina is no scientist) and then her words land in your Google Reader. This is how Nina has always interfaced with you. If you've been paying close (... really close, eyeball toasting close) attention, Nina's anonymity is eroding as a direct result of Nina's words not bouncing off the technology thingy. (This might be a good time to stop talking about myself in the third person).

Lately, my words have been bouncing off the faces of real people, and some of my in real life friends and a few family members have stumbled into this internet diary. Everything I might say I can no longer say because Nina (I) has wandered too close to the atmosphere of earth and she (I) is getting all burned up and dead upon entry. I can't talk like this. I need to be anonymous, and I am not anymore.

I would not have survived (truth, not hyperbole) this year without your support and encouragement, and I am kicking myself square in my virtual ass (which one can only do when one is two people and one of them is imaginary) for letting things get of hand. It was probably inevitable, but it hurts like hell. I will really miss you (us).*

Love,

Nina

* After I have imaginarily slept with like 9 other figments of my imagination, who knows? Maybe I will come crawling back here and beg you to take me back. I hear that's what most people do when they break up with their computers. Let's both just assume you'll still have me if I get good and cleaned up and do my best beg and grovel.

Another crack in the firmament

This weekend, I broke my all anonymous, all the time rule. I met LAS of This Too Shall Pass in New York City. She was here to visit friends, and since we spend most every day on chat tied at the back of the mind, I figured it was cowardly and absurd not to meet her. Several thoughts went through my mind as I contemplated this meeting. In no particular order:

1) What if online simpatico does not equal real life simpatico? What if in person the whole thing is just wrong?
2) What if she thinks I am stupid, ugly, fat, or smelly?
3) What if we can't agree on whether to eat nachos or burgers?

Like all post-modern problems, these seemed terribly important until the moment when LAS got out of the cab and we met on the corner in front of the house (the one I live in now).

Really knowing someone over the internet is not easy to do. To read a person's blog is not to know the person. LAS and I didn't really know each other when we met on Saturday and now we do. I am glad of this and I hope she is, too.

Sidebar: my befuddlement continues. I am doing much better, but finding myself hesitant to write about the really interesting stuff in my life right now. This might be the time to make a natural break from blogging - or to at least find a new home. Wordpress? Anyone with any strong opinion is invited and encouraged to let me know.

I miss reading all your blogs and I miss writing mine. See the above befuddlement. "It" is not over, but it may, in the long run, be different.

Love,
Nina

Whatever, already

After hauling boxes and enduring the sneers of the entire staff of my building, I decided that I am going to take another week to move my remaining possessions over to the new house. I have to work and it's unavoidable, as is the chagrin of my building's entire staff if I don't sneak my remaining possessions out in back packs and duffle bags. I can only do so much in a day, and after the unbelievable stress of the last two weeks, I just can't deal with any more - any more sneers, any more boxes, any more nasty cab drivers and certainly not any more work terrorism.

I don't know what has happened to me - I used to be able to just roll with whatever came my way. The person I have become has a brain like a chicken wing and the nervous system of a rabid monkey. I have to slow down, or I will be left with nothing but the paper slippers at Belleview and a handful of medicine that no longer works unless I take three times the maximum daily dose.

Having said all that, let me apologize to all the people I have let down in the last few weeks. My blog has not been fun to read and I owe other obligations to people I shall not name - you know who you are... and I have no excuse for myself except the above chicken-wing-monkey situation. I'll be my old self again someday. Try November, maybe.

Love,
Nina

This... is crazy

There is no way a person can move over three days and then also work three jobs at the same time. And yet this is what I am doing. I have to be out of my apartment by, um, tomorrow. I have packed and packed and packed and packed, and yet there is still more crap to be unloaded and dealt with. It's unbelievably stressful, and yet I must do it and damnit, I have deadlines at work that I have to meet and I can't blow them. So with one hand I am grading papers and with the other I am stuffing books into boxes and taping them shut and trying to figure out how to get this stuff down the service elevator, into a cab and down the street without violating the building's rules, which state that no one can move anything after 5pm - which is the only time my friend with the big SUV can help me move my stuff. It's a total clusterfuck. I can't cope. Cutting back on anxiety reducing drugs at the same time? That's not working out at all. I find myself either staring at the bottle of xanax and weeping - or taking them and then merely crying. The stress, oh lord God, is too much.

Lisa at Clusterfook recently posted about self-revoking her Whining Card, but she is a stronger woman than I am. I am whining. I will post again and hopefully I will not be doing even more of it.. the whining.

Love,

Nina

Thanks, Maggie

Your result for How geeky are you?...

Cool Introvert

50% Geeky, 74% Cranial and 57% Introverted!

You scored 50% Geeky, 74% Cranial and 57% Introverted! Brilliant! This is so very exciting because you have managed to maintain your intelligence yet steer clear of the path to geekiness. You are the rarest of the rare, not many people score in this category. I don't know if you realize the delicate balance between smarts and geekiness, yet you have overcome!!

You most likely have a strong passion for reading or some other hobby you can cultivate on your own, and this can be a wonderful creative outlet. Make sure you take the time to develop strong interpersonal relationships as they may not come as easily to you, though they are vital for a fulfilling life. It takes much effort to mantain them at times, but their benefits far outweight their draw backs.

I truly hope you enjoyed the test as much as I enjoyed making it! I always welcome email comments/suggestions! Thanks for taking it!

Take How geeky are you? at HelloQuizzy

How about a post of a different kind

I am on the road for work in some lovely upstate mountainous paradise.  Upon waking in my hotel room, I remember I have to stop by the OB-GYN.  (Work with me, people.. I was dreaming).   When I get there the receptionist puts me in a chair and my doctor comes in with a folder and then some other doctor came in with some other folder and lifted some lab work out of it and started to chuckle.  There was a big H somewhere on it.  

I thought of Lisa and said, "Oh, fuck.  Do I have ovarian cancer?"

The doctor started belly laughing, sort of like Santa Clause in a pocket protector.  

"Look again."

I looked.   And looked.  And then I found a number :  beta HCG 826. * 

And then we both started laughing but only for about two seconds because then I started to cry so hard I had to be ushered into a private little padded area to compose myself, which took hours.  During this time, as I was sobbing uncontrollably, I confessed to the doctor that I'd had a few beers at my dad's funeral.  And that there might have been some anti-depressants.  And that - and this is the most serious thing - I had not been having sex. 

In fact, I had been having so much NOT sex that this could not be true. 

"You are pregnant," he said. 

"Is it because of that guy at the office who always comes into the office in assless pants and a leather jacket and rides away on his motorcycle just as soon as he has picked up his paycheck??  Everyone hates him."  

I pondered a moment.  "But could it be?"

"Does it really matter?" replied the doctor. 

"No," I said.  And then I cried some more.  I had fleeting moments of bringing shame and disgrace on my family.  They were super fleeting.   Then I had moments of terror that my child would hate me because it would be fatherless.  Then I remembered being born is better than not having a father.  And then I cried for several more hours because I was so happy and I wanted to be a mother so damned badly and...  826!  

Now it's 9am and I am awake and very sad to think I'll never be a mother or even have a beta or a man in assless pants to unwittingly get me pregnant.  Moral:  dreams are mostly useless, but sometimes they tell you what you really, really want.  

This post is for Ellie and Maggie, who have the guts to do what I could never even think of.  And for me Julie, who has her six week ultrasound today.  

Heartbeat, anyone?  I'll continue smearing my family's unpleasantness all over the internet tomorrow.  

Love, 

Nina 

* for those of you unacquainted with the world of reproductive medicine, your beta indicates pregnancy or lack thereof.  A beta of 826 is very, very pregnant.  

Damnit of the week

David Foster Wallace is gone. If you knew who he was, you know why this is important and a terrible loss.

If you don't know why, read The Broom of the System, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and above all, Infinite Jest. Woodrow, that book is in that box I manage to keep never sending you. Maybe now I will get off my butt and get to it.

Also, head over to Joel's and congratulate him on becoming a grandfather.

But Dave is gone and I am ___________. (Unhappy about it).


Everybody say a prayer or whatever you do. For the baby, but also the lost one. He was the real thing.

New Blogroll

What the hell is wrong with me?

I need to update my blogroll. Please comment if you would like you are not included and would like to be. I read a lot of blogs that I am not linking to, as I should be.

Give me a shout if you are not properly represented.

Love,

Nina

Should have known

You Are a Cashew

You are laid back, friendly, and easy going. Compared to most people, you have a very mild temperament. You blend in well. You're often the last person to get noticed. But whenever you're gone, people seem to notice right away!

What Nut Are You?

Got this where I get many good things: Lisa's place.

Color Test. Scares. Me.

Found this over at Lisa's place and uh, the accuracy of it is scary. Can there actually be sometime to this? It doesn't actually says "You've been rooked" --- but pretty close.

Nina took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "Seeks the determination and elasticity of will nec..." Click here to read the rest of the results.