loriestories

For years, I have been functioning under the stunning misconception that I am basically a mellow person. In fact, if I weren’t so lazy, I could probably search in the archives of this very site just a little bit and find several occasions where I described myself in some way that seemed mellow.

If you have ever worked with me, dated me, been related to me, or hell, encountered me on the street, you are probably reading this through tears of laughter and disbelief. You might even have accidentally peed on your chair a little bit because you were laughing so hard. I’ll wait while you go get a towel and change.

You’re back? Oh, good.

So I’m confessing it now: I am not mellow. I am not even a little bit mellow. I am so not mellow, in fact, that I have often been accused of not knowing how to relax. I’ve been told that even when I think I’m relaxed, I’m actually still tense, still unwilling to let go, still afraid to lose control. If you’re like this, you understand. If you’re not, let me tell you: that shit takes a lot of energy to maintain. It really does. But it’s so hard and scary to let go.

Seth and I emailed and IMed each other for a few weeks before we ever met in person, and during one of those conversations, I confessed to him that I didn’t like watching horror movies because I tended to get very upset when people died. Everyone else in the theater would be laughing and cringing at the gore and the absurdity of the whole thing, and I’d be fighting tears and thinking about who was going to make funeral arrangements and clean up the mess and go through the dead person’s things and close bank accounts and stuff. Because no one was thinking about that in the movie and someone should think about it and it really stressed me out.

“Wow,” he said. “Sounds like someone has too much responsibility in her life.” And, you know, he was probably right.

These days, he’s pretty great at identifying times when I need to let go a little bit, but it’s often hard for me to take his advice. He’ll notice I’m in hypermanaging mode about something or other and kind of take me off to the side and say, “Hey. You don’t have to be in charge of this thing. Let someone else figure it out.” And he’s right, sort of, but on the other hand, who am I if I’m not being responsible for everything?

Of course part of me thinks nothing will get done right, if at all, if I don’t oversee it. But probably an even bigger part of the problem is that I’ve allowed it to define me. I am the person who answers the question. I am the person who solves the problem. I am the person who researches the best airfare. I am the person who makes the reservations. I am the person who decides what time we’re leaving and whether we need reservations and if you should wear a jacket. And I resent it sometimes. Sometimes I really, really resent it. But again, how am I useful to you, how am I productive, how will I have value if I let you do those things yourself?

Here are my greatest fears: being perceived as dependent, stupid, or incompetent. I am more worried about other people THINKING those things than I am about actually becoming them. And how stupid is that? I can’t really control what other people think about me no matter how I behave. But still I try. I work my ass off, wipe myself out, expend all of my energy to be sure that others see me as independent, intelligent, and above all else, COMPETENT.

I don’t know if I can stop making those things so important to me, but I do know that I would really like to be able to just relax and turn off my worries and, you know, maybe watch a gory movie once in a while without stressing out so much about who’s going to clean up those brains on the floor.

I’ve been going through old emails and files this weekend and purging things, and while I was doing it I ran across this email I sent to someone shortly after my first (and so far, only) trip to Las Vegas in early 2006. It’s a little bit of a change of pace, and I kind of like it, so I thought I’d post it here.

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I learned quickly and well that the only thing to do in Vegas is spend your money – preferably all of it, but most of it will do. Vegas goes out of its way to assist you in this endeavor. It’s odd. It’s kind of gross. By the second day I was totally over it.

The symposium I was sent to attend had some repetitive stuff, and I made the command decision on the first afternoon to ditch the late sessions and strike out on my own. This is what I do in any new city – grab the camera, and maybe the iPod, and head out walking.

I was fascinated by and nervous about the guys who stood three deep on the Strip, with handfuls of cards of some kind that they slapped in rhythm. I’ve spent half my life in marching bands (dork alert) and find it impossible to ignore a cadence, so before I knew it my footsteps were matched to their hands. Slap, slap; step, step. I put on my Panhandler and Religious Literature Avoidance Face and my moviestar sunglasses and hoped they wouldn’t approach me – but then, as I walked blocks in time with their hands, I started to get kind of pissed that not a single one of them tried to hand me a thing. Perhaps my P&RLAF was too stern. Maybe my moviestar sunglasses were too cool. Maybe I was gross. Was that it? Was I gross? Why weren’t those sons of bitches trying to force their cards on me?

Out of nowhere I became insecure and found myself looking down at the ground as I walked. Then I finally noticed that the ground was littered with the cards the guys were handing out to, it seemed, everyone on the damn Strip but me. Cards for strippers, and/or ‘personal escorts.’ I didn’t really need a stripper or a personal escort that day or any other day, so I am guessing they gauged their audience (or lack thereof) correctly, at least in my case.

In my mind I kept comparing Las Vegas to New Orleans, where I traveled just about a year ago. In New Orleans I could not walk three steps without being approached by someone wanting to pull me into a bar, or shine my shoes, or read my palm, or sell me a painting or a flower or a string of beads. For some reason that bothered me less than Vegas did – Vegas is full of big generic machines and stores and such with solid, arrogant conviction that people will flock to them like sheep and throw their dollars in. New Orleans, on the other hand, was much more organic – a more personal hustle, if such a thing exists. I don’t know if that makes a lick of sense to anyone outside my head, but it’s the best way I can get it out through my hands right now.

I adored the weather, sunny and warm and beautifully DRY (compared to the mid-Atlantic humidity that I can never get used to, no matter how long I live here), and I was very yokel-assed touristy and in love with the palm trees, which feel like a vacation to me even when the weather’s bad.