Dependence, Independence, Codependence

This period of automotive disability has been something of a learning experience. After the first weeks of inconvenience, I am starting to become accustomed to taking the bus in the morning, for one thing. I am also becoming more comfortable with the idea of asking people for rides to and from places. I have learned to time my activities (like grocery shopping or schlepping bulk mail to the post office) to coincide with a visit from or activity with a friend with a car.



But I have also learned how and why I was so loath to ask for rides in the first place, and why my temporary disability has been so depressing... it's because the loss of my car has represented a loss of self-esteem, a sizeable ding in my image of myself as an independent and capable adult. So not only do I have the inconvenience of not being able to go where I want when I want and carry heavy things with me, but I actually have to ask for help... and this is terribly galling.



I suppose I have always been very independent by nature. I prefer to do things myself rather than let anyone else do them for me... unless it's something I don't know how to do, or am not good at, or hate doing... and then I prefer to pay a professional to do it than to let a friend or relative do it for me, unless I can't afford it for whatever reason, or if it's substantially more convenient, like letting my sister work on my car or letting Grandmother cook our meals. Even so, I do everything I can to make such things reciprocal: my sister works on my car, and I lend her money occasionally and do little favors for her; Grandmother feeds and houses me, so I chauffeur her around and run her errands and reach things down from high cupboards.



This independence is a strength in many ways, it has caused me to learn how to do an awful lot of things for myself, from very early childhood. Self-reliance is a wonderful and desirable thing, it makes one's life easier and, I think, makes one more attractive and valuable to others. On the other hand, it also causes me to avoid asking for help when I really need it, and to feel either guilty or inadequate when I do find myself in a tight corner and have to ask for help; and when I feel inadequate or guilty, I tend to become resentful of the person upon whom I am forced to depend, so I end up hating both myself and others for this dependency.



You could call it a double-edged sword, I suppose.



And incidentally, this sense of distaste for being dependent on others isn't only directed towards myself... I often find myself sneering at other people when they make too great a display of need. I have a cousin who has been chronically needy, always wanting someone to give her something or to help her out, forever searching for a man to take care of her and her children, incessantly finding herself in situations from which she must be bailed out by softhearted friends and relatives. I find myself resenting her more than even myself and the people I depend upon, because she doesn't seem to even be trying to do things herself, as I have done since infancy — it's as though she takes risks and does things with the assurance that someone will be there to catch her when she fails.



In that feeling of resentment is also a tinge (or more) of jealousy, since she does take risks and do things which I would never dare, having absolutely no feeling of assurance that someone would catch me. Taking risks (on one hand) and being dependent on someone else (on the other hand) render one vulnerable, and I am absoutely pathological in my fear of vulnerability.



But as I grow and learn, I find that it's fairly easy, once I have to ask someone for help, to reciprocate in some way or another... and if not directly to the person who helped me then by "paying it forward" and helping someone else; so logically there is really no reason for me to avoid asking help of people, it simply becomes a matter of making the effort of reciprocation.



On the other hand, I think that somewhere in the deeper root of my desire for independence is an element of laziness... I fear the effort of helping people, of being expected to do things for others, fear being taken advantage of, and of course fear ultimately disappointing people when I can't do what they want when they want it. There's also that terrible fear of rejection, that if I ask someone for help he or she will say "No," and remind me that I am an unworthy individual (as I've always suspected and secretly believed). So what it boils down to is fear, and overcoming fear in order to be a better person.



Kind of my theme this year, overcoming fear. And overcoming my crippling lack of self-esteem. And trying new things.



So anyway, that's all terribly interesting but it doesn't give me any hints about how to get on with it. I've always felt that identifying and understanding the problem was half the work... but I have never discovered exactly what the other half is. "Prayer and Meditation," my sponsor will tell me. "Self-help books," my Grandmother would tell me. "Psychotherapy," my friends will tell me. "Shopping, eating, and some kind of pills," the voices in my head tell me.



I am feeling a little peckish, just now. I haven't had lunch yet. And later I'm getting a manicure, with a trim and fill of my acrylics (I finally broke one nail, and split one and chipped another one, and they're too long to type with, and they're ugly ugly ugly) and a hand-massage, that ought to do something for me. I bought a new dress yesterday, too. So now all I need is a new car, and I'll be set! And I wouldn't mind a whole buttload of money. And someone who absolutely adores me, and looks like this (and really, the looks part is negotiable, I'll settle for medium looks with my adoration):

More Closure, Please

My sister continues to work on Miss Marjorie... it seems there's this object called an "Inertia Switch" that turns off the fuel pump in the event of a collision; my coworker JB's husband (who is an automotive electrician) mentioned this object to me over dinner last week, positing that my little encounter with the rogue curb might have fooled the machine into believing that it had been in an altercation with one of those famous Immoveable Objects; and though it struck me as farfetched, I told my sister about it; she had never heard of such a thing, but during her perusal of the half-assed Chilton guide to my car, she discovered that there's a good likelihood that exactly such a thing is installed in my engine, and that the likelihood that it was tripped by the curb is also high... however, she can't find the damned thing. She can't find the fuel pump, either. The drawings in the Chilton guide are vague, at best, and while there is a lovely illustration of the fuel pump of Engine B230F, the drawing lacks the little arrow-line that indicates where, in the byzantine innards of said engine, the fuel pump is actually situated.



But she continues the search, and has gotten our father involved in the project as well. In the meantime, I remain stymied by what to do next... if Marjorie is merely comatose rather than dead, what will I do with her when she recovers: keep her, sell her, donate her? And what of my plan to purchase a 2003 Ford Focus SE Sedan in French Blue with Parchment interior? While I deplore the debt and expense of buying a brand-new car, I am very comfortable with the idea and the visuals of a 2003 Ford Focus SE Sedan in French Blue with Parchment interior, and now I really want one.



Oh, well, the answer will be revealed in due time, no doubt. All questions are invariably answered (unfortunately, the rest of that quote is "by Death"... closure, indeed).



In other news, I have noticed lately that certain websites which are related by a common-factor individual, and which in blog parlance are my blogparent and bloggrandparent, are now gone. I speak of course of the sad termination of East/West and the mysterious disappearance of the Galaxy Girls site... it was Philo (the alterego of Rula Planet) who started the Galaxy Girls blog, inspired by the success of his East/West partnership, and it was from him that I caught the blogging bug... and when the Galaxy Girls' blog couldn't hold me, Mannersism was born. But now they're both gone, I am an orphan, and I don't quite know what happened. I want closure here, too.



It would probably seem somewhat less mysterious if I had been following Philo's solo blog, but I have not had the concentration necessary for keeping up with my more fluent blogsisters of late... but I did skim through it today and found no mention of the Galaxy and whether or not the sudden and unannounced absence of its webpage is indicative of anything.



If the Galaxy Girls show was at an end, I would totally understand... Rula Planet has been giving it her all for more than seven years, and I know that sort of thing wears one down. You start this fun little showm (or blog, for that matter), an outlet for your own creative energy and the energy of some of your friends; and then all of a sudden you aren't doing it for the hell of it anymore, you're doing it because people expect you to do it... it's no longer something that gives you outlet on your own terms, it is work dictated by the desires of others. This latest loss of venue was perhaps the last straw in a series of disenchantments; and I know that Philo is a creature of growth and change, who does not make a practice of toting empty and useless luggage around with him. And since no one stepped forward to keep the Galaxy spinning in its tiny Marin County orbit, perhaps it is time for it to die.



But nobody has told me whether or not this is the case. I suppose I could do the unthinkable and try to communicate with Philo about this issue, but that somehow seems too simple... and therefore ineffective. Still, I need to know one way or another. If the Galaxy is no more, then Candie Swallows is the last Miss Gay Marin and I can start wearing the clothes and accessories that I have been holding in reserve for the next Pageant. If on the other hand the Galaxy still lives, in a comatose stasis like Miss Marjorie, I will have to decide exactly how much effort I am willing to put into its resurrection. I just need to know one way or another... closure, you see.



And speaking of closures, I am currently engaged in one of my least-favorite work tasks, stuffing envelopes for an election. This is the big General Election that we have every two years, with the four officers, eight campus reps, and four committee chairs all up for election at the same time. Everyone votes for officers and one of the committee chairs, but there have to be separate ballots for all four campuses (two reps each) and three of the committees (special constituencies), so that there are twelve different subsets of faculty with different combinations of ballots. Just to make it more interesting, there's also a negotiations survey (one for full-time folk, another for the poor part-timers) intended to discover just how committed the members are to their PPO and what they're willing to sacrifice to keep it.



And oddly enough, I'm not minding this very much at all. I guess things have gotten so nutty in my life that I welcome a little mindless tedium as a change of pace. Besides, it's always a nice time to sit and visit with Caroline. Stuffing envelopes is a little like playing cards, it gives you enough to do that you aren't fidgeting, but leaves enough brain-space for conversation.



So I guess I'd better get at that... but first, dinner.



Finally, speaking one more time of closure, some things just don't need to be closed:

I Need Closure

When exactly did this "closure" phenomenon get started? I would guess that it was about the same time that hugging became not only acceptable but the de rigeur manner of greeting people one knows... I remember when people used to shake hands upon greeting, and hugging was saved for either hyperemotional or somewhat sexualized situations. I remember when one didn't have to think about how to mark one's arrival and departure from a social or family situation: you shake hands with men, you kiss women on the cheek. Life was simpler then.



Remember that? And before we had "closure," what did we yearn for? Was it something we've always needed but never realized, like microwaves and the internet? Or is it just a fancy word for the resolution that the tidy mind always reaches for?



Somehow I imagine that back in Ye Olde Days, the prehugging, pre"closure" days, that the dead car in my driveway would be described as a clunker, a heap, a lemon, a lawn-ornament. I would call a towtruck and have it removed either to a garage or a dump. But now, in these touchy-feely days of emotional attachments and infantile anthropomorphism, I find that my relationship with Miss Marjorie is dysfunctional. My Automotive Lifestyle Associate is having issues. She's having a bad feng shui day.



And I don't know what to do. Shall I spend money to have her fixed? Should I junk her and get another old car to beat up? Or should I take my father's advice and buy a brand-new car with a five-year warranty? And what, in any case, should I do about the fact that there is an inoperable Volvo taking up room in my driveway? What should I do about having to take the bus to and from work all the time? About not being able to go grocery shopping or run errands or cart things around with me?



I hate being stuck with decisions like this. I hate that, even if I did come up with a decision, I wouldn't be able to act on it right away. If I had Marjorie fixed, it would probably take quite some time to get her up and running again. And to buy another car, one has to do research, one has to comparison-price, one has to test-drive, one has to come up with financing. So far I have requested quotes for a new Ford Focus (I rented one once, and quite liked it... plus it comes in "French Blue" with a "Parchment" interior, and that sounds about as gay as I can ask a car to be) and am looking at elderly Volvos in better condition than poor Miss Marjorie.



Either way I need to get her towed... but to where? Dump? Dealer? Midsummer Mozart Festival? Until I can make that decision, everything is in stasis.



In the meantime, the rest of my life is a bit of a shambles as well. If by today the window-man hasn't finished the windows in my room, thereby allowing me to actually live in the room again, I will kick him right in the head wearing my square-toed patent-leather spectator pumps. It's not just the discomfort of having to sleep in a twin bed in the guest-room, but rather the complete feeling of displacement that I can't get into my room and simply be in my own little part of the world. Also, I can't get to my computer, or to my clothes. I thought this was going to be a one-day thing, not that it would drag on across three days.



So I can't go to my room, and I can't leave the house, and I'm simply miserable.



But I just checked and the windows are finished... so when I get home I am going to spend a great deal of time vacuuming and putting my room back together (as well as the living room, dining room, and guest room... the whole house is a wreck). And when I'm done with that, I can resume the envelope-stuffing project on which I have been engaged all day at work — I spent all day tweaking with the database and printing labels; over the weekend I am going to put all the labels on all the envelopes; and then on Monday we stuff.



And speaking of stuffing...

Isn't "stuffing" a basketball term? What were you thinking I meant?

Oy!

The work is mounting up here in the office. The Boss has started me updating the webpage almost daily with new bulletins. I have to get a general election out by Monday or Tuesday (general elections go to the entire membership, which has to be sorted into eight subsets, and it takes bloody forever to organize). I haven't paid the bills yet, or done the per-caps or the filing that is stacked up all over my desk. The phones will continue to ring and letters will need to be written. I am becoming overwhelmed. Strike that, I am overwhelmed. To the point that I just want to crawl into bed and hide.



At home, I spent this morning rearranging my room so the window-men could replace my windows. That means that I had to pick up all the clothes and books and magazines that were on the floor and put them in boxes and bags (I filled four garbage bags with clothes and four paper-ream cases with books and magazines... and that's just the dirty clothes, there's probably another two or three bags-full of clean things in the drawers, not to mention all the things in the closet that I practically never wear, and then the shelves and shelves of books that are sitting where they belong... I am beginning to suspect that I may have too much stuff); then I moved the shelves of videos and the television from the end of my bed over in front of the closet, which had taken me some time to get closed; then I pulled all the storage boxes out from under the bed (two 4x18x36 plastic crates of porn and one filled with school papers, diplomas, and photographs) and stacked them in front of the desk; then I dismantled my bed and shoved it in front of my desk and bookcase.



So now all the space around the windows is clear, but all the other portions of the room are stacked to the ceiling and about 85% of my possessions are down in the basement. I also hurt my left wrist and my back in the process, so I am groaning and grunting through my day, only vaguely soothed by a steady stream of ibuprofen. And when I get home, I will have to put it all back together before I can get into bed and lick my wounds. Perhaps I'll just stay in the office... it's less work. And I won't have to ride the bus (my car is still kaput).



Oh, well. As one of our members pointed out to me today (when I answered her cheerful and rhetorical "How are you?" with a sullen but honest "I've been better"), at least I'm alive and healthy. She's just recovering from cancer, so her outlook is somewhat more spacious than mine, and her valuation of life much higher.



Well, I can't just sit here bitching all day. But before I go, here are some pictures from the drag show on Sunday last:

Miss Caroline, Miss Me, and Miss Angelique at the Bench & Bar for the Cinco de Mayo Show. I forgot the first rule of maintaining one's fabulousness: never allow oneself be photographed standing next to people who are thinner than one.





Angelique and Caroline giving 'Tude. Caroline is showing off the peridot jewelry she made this weekend (when she's not out stalking the male population of the Bay Area and getting them to buy her dinner, she likes to relax with a bit of beading).





Standing sensibly solo in my red sequined silk cardigan set. I bought that at the Marin General Hospital Thrift Shop in San Rafael last year; the adorable elderly ladies in the store knew the other elderly lady who had donated it and were thrilled to be able to tell her that the lovely old rag would be paraded across many a glamorous stage as part and parcel of Miss Marlénè Manners, drag queen extraordinaire.





And in close-up, showing my gorgeously fabulous but horrendously heavy bronze earrings from Paris, France. I have been making a point of buying French products whenever possible, but have been limited in my scope by not drinking wine or spending more than fifty dollars on any one item of clothing. What I wonder is, if we sever diplomatic ties with France, will we have to return the Statue of Liberty? We should ask the other Miss Manners, Judith Martin.





RGDC Royal Crown Count Frank Salerno poses with our hostess for the evening, Grand Duchess VI Sohorny Beaver. Sohorny is such a sweet and lovely person, and her gowns are a revelation; Frank is charming and adorable, and I think Caroline is getting a little crush on him.



* * * * *

So anyway, that's all I have uploaded for now... I took a lot more pictures, but I have been so rushed! One of these days I'm going to get some rest, and then the day after that I hope I will be able to get to some of these projects that have been taking a back seat to work and family concerns lately. In the meantime, though, I always have time for beefcake:

Tired, Working, Allergies, Bleah

I went to bed last night at nine and got up at seven this morning... and in between I woke up seven or eight times for no good reason. I'm not sure how much actual sleep I got, but it wasn't nearly enough.



So then I get to work and I have been working really hard all day long... I had to write a set of minutes, and while I was doing that several little things popped up to be dealt with. And just as I was getting ready to leave, The Boss asked me to wait so I could upload something to our website.



It's raining, I don't have a car, my allergies are acting up, and I'm just not a very happy camper. But now I'm off to dinner. When I get home I have to move the furniture in my room so the window men can get at the windows.



I hope your day went better than that.

Wheeeee!

I am so effing tired I could just lay down and die. I had a marvelous weekend, but I just didn't get any sleep at all. I never do sleep well away from my own bed; but add in the fact that the strange bed was iron and intensely squeaky (it woke me up every time I moved), the sounds of fifteen or so other guys who don't apparently need sleep as much as I do galumphing around overhead (I was in a downstairs room of a very rickety building), and all that disgusting clean air and pine trees and other effluvia, and it's a miracle I got any sleep at all.



Here are some pictures of the retreat grounds.

I was so interested in the greenery that I never even took pictures of the lovely buildings of St Dorothy's Rest (but you can see some lovely drawings by following the link). This is what you see when you walk out of the main building.





Here's a more open vista, where I climbed out onto a promontory that juts out from the one of the forest trails.





A rushing waterfall I encountered on my walk Saturday morning. It rained all day Friday, but cleared up on Saturday... so everything was wet and clean, and there was lots less pollen in the air than there might have been.





The oldest of the many staircases carved into the hillsides over which St Dot's is scattered. It's made up of seven buildings spaced fairly far apart on several acres of woodland. The original buildings, such as the main hall, the chapel, Miriam House, and Lydia House were built in the early 1900s, using the camp/cottage shingle style that was so popular in those days, and the last buildings (boxy boring Berton House, and rickety hill-clung Lincoln Lodge, in which I was quartered) were put up in the 70s.





These are newer steps, which I had to climb to get to my room in Lincoln Lodge... unless I wanted to walk around by way of the road, which was much longer and only slightly less steep. I got a lot of cardio work this weekend.





Proof positive that I was, indeed, walking about in the woods quite willingly. I took this picture by sticking my camera into the crook of a tree and walking backwards from it. On the way, I dropped my coffee cup. Fortunately, it was empty (I hate to waste good coffee).

I have more pictures. I haven't uploaded them yet. But it's pretty much more of the same. I'll tell you more tomorrow, as well as the stories of my weekend from driving in the rented PT Cruiser through shopping in Guerneville through performing in a drag show right here in my own home town. But right now I'm going to bed. I'm too tired to continue.



Nighty night! (Yes I am aware that it is not strictly "night" yet. But "Eveningy evening" is a bit clunky)

Over the River and Through the Woods

Well, my darlings, I'm off! Yes, I know I've been a bit off for quite some time and it is your own natural politeness that prevents you from saying so. But nevertheless, I am off to Camp Meeker (I looked up links, and apparently there's a whorehouse there... I won't link to that, though, I'll let you do it) to enjoy the Annual Gay Men's Fourth-Step Retreat. I won't be working on my fourth step this trip, though... I'm too immured in my eighth step right now. I will, however, be enjoying the fellowship and the cuisine as I work on my eighth step instead of my fourth.



On the other hand, I had to rent a car to get to this retreat, as Miss Marjorie is still ass-up in the driveway. My sister diagnoses "wiring trouble," but won't have time to deal with it until Sunday. So I went down to Enterprise and asked for the cheapest car they had on the lot. Since I didn't have reservations, my choices were a pickup truck (not enough room for my luggage... it is raining after all), a Cadillac deVille (too expensive and too big to drive on windy mountain roads), and a PT Cruiser. So, much to my chagrin, I am now driving around in a black faux-vintage station-wagon. At least it has a CD player. And it's quite comfortable on the inside. But I'm so embarrassed.



I would probably be less embarrassed if I hadn't been very and frequently vocal in my disdain of the PT Cruiser (and the New Beetle, and those goddamned Minis that make me want to lay about them with an aluminum baseball bat). But God these things are stupid-looking.



Anyway, I'd better be scooting. I'm way behind schedule, and it will take me at least two hours to get to Camp Meeker in this rain. I'd hate to miss dinner. So toodles, my dears, and I'll check in again on Monday!