Unlikely Inspiration

I have had the good fortune over the last few weeks of being really obnoxious and stirring up misunderstandings with several people about whom I care a great deal.

You know how sometimes you're grumpy and you think, "Why is everyone in the whole world so stupid and annoying?!" and then you have a quiet moment to sit and reflect and realize that it can't possibly be everyone in the whole world, so it's probably you? Well, it's been kind of like that.

How can all these people who know I love them take what I say so wrong?! Chances are it's because I'm saying it wrong, or I'm saying things I don't need to, or because I'm running off at the mouth without thinking things all the way through.

I have a host of excuses that come and pat me on the back and cluck their tongues and sympathize with me: You're tired, you poor dear. You didn't really mean that. Everyone has bad days. There were extenuating circumstances. You are a rare and unique snowflake who is frequently misunderstood. You had good intentions. You are only human. And any other number of gentle self-bolstering murmurings. It's not that these things are not true. But what does it matter if my intentions were good when my ill-chosen words (or seriously, complete diatribes) hurt someone else?

You know that feeling of not knowing the snappy comeback and then later you think of all of these marvelously wicked things you could have said? I almost never have that feeling. Not because I am so nice. Because I can almost always think of the snappy comeback. I can flatten someone with words if I feel cornered, insulted, or even just mildly irritated. It is a far worse feeling to have flattened someone than to have stood speechless and blinking. But this is not the sort of thing I'm talking about, really. I don't often get into verbal confrontations like that any more.

No, sadly, I'm talking about the sort of well-reasoned, articulate, contemplated blowing of hot air from atop a self-designed pedestal that deflates people. Not on purpose. But because my purpose was unclear, or because my own ego decided to come and do a little jig in the forefront of my brain, drowning out anything anyone else was saying. Where I allow the part of myself that fears itself and other people to do the talking for me. The kind of thing where I project the nonsense of my own neuroses onto a screen of other people's lives and superimpose my perspective over everything like some kind of grainy, B-grade horror flick. And not the "so bad it's good" kind, not the cult classic. Nope. It's the kind that leaves people groaning and outraged that they've wasted their time with it. The kind that has people looking for their car keys and trying to make a hasty egress halfway through.

You may have spotted up there that I said "good fortune". I was not being sarcastic. This month I am writing about the things that inspire me from day to day. If I am completely honest with myself, a major source of inspiration for me both in life and in writing is to stop and reflect on my own bad behavior. There are things that I struggle with constantly. There are elements of my personality that I detest. I gave up worrying over a less-than-supermodel appearance years ago. When people ask what I would change about myself, I never think of my love handles. I think of my tongue. For every gift, there is a light and a dark side. For everything we do well and naturally, there is an abuse of the talent.

I have been blessed with a certain amount of ability to express myself with words. I can't dance, I don't draw or paint well, I will only ever be a moderate to poor musician, but I can sometimes turn a phrase. I take this for granted. I assume that it comes naturally to other people. It is not usually a difficult or arduous task to sit and think of things to say or write or imagine. I like words, I like to play with them and see what they will do. I live intentionally to try to use those words for building up, drawing closer or describing a common condition. I have my own personalized paving stones in the road to hell in this particular regard. Sometimes, because they flow so easily, because I have practiced commanding them, I get emotionally lazy or careless or just plain arrogant and forget or ignore the effect they can have. Sometimes they tear down, push away, and attempt to define myself outside a certain boundary. This is not a source of pride for me. It is a misuse of ability and really just generally obnoxious and tiresome.

Why is this inspiring to me? Because these brushes with my darker nature, my egregious missteps, these confrontations with the ugly things within me spur me on to do better, to be better, to live better. I compete and contend with these demons every day. It is through this acknowledgement of my own shortcomings that I push myself further to learn how to love better, how to relate better, how to soften the edges and recognize the gaping holes. I'm still learning. Every day I fail at something in one way or another. Sometimes more spectacularly than others. I accept this. I am, after all, only human. But being human does not excuse me from trying to be a better human. This is my inspiration: the gifts of growth, of humbling experiences, the gift of a chance to learn and move onward, upward, outward some more.

Distracted

Is it just me, or is there a whole lot of nasty stuff going down here, lately?! It seems there are a lot of things floating around my world these last few weeks that I don't want to think about. I will think about them eventually. I've set them in the back of the fridge like a sourdough starter and when they're ripe, I'll make some delicious decision bread. Not today. Today I am completely distracted.

I dreamed last night that an old friend and I were standing in what looked like a Soviet bread line. We huddled outside with a lot of grim faced strangers, shuffling our feet andlooking at the ground.


 Smash cut. We emerged in a dark, Warhol-esque warehouse sort of scene. Standing at a cocktail table, my friend and I squabbled over who would speak to Billy D. Williams. I wanted Friend to because he has connections "in the industry". He was afraid of looking uncool when he asked Billy D. to sign the Lando Calrissian action figure I had smuggled in. Friend finally agreed to do it, but every time he touched the action figure, it turned into a talking Kelsey Grammer / Frasier Crane doll.

  Insert cartoonish struggling over action figure and scuffling onto the floor. [Ever conscious of sticky things, I am a little appalled, even in my dream, that I am rolling around on the floor of a club.] Landed sweating and dissheveled in front of the stage just as David Bowie came on. But it was like Labyrinth David Bowie and he gave us the stink-eye for ruining his entrance. I recoiled from the inexplicably spooky dream subtext that is impossible to explain, but then was oddly excited because I got some Bowie glitter on me. I turned around to show Friend and he was gone. So was my Lando Calrissian action figure. The latter was more ominous than the former for some reason.

Needless to say, it was a strange way to start the day. My day that only got stranger for myriad reasons that I am still not thinking about. This day that will conclude with going to see David Shields give a talk at the library for National Write a Novel Month. I want to bring a book for him to autograph, but being the library addict bibliophile that I am, the only book of his that I actually own is a copy of Reality Hunger that he, himself, sent to me last year. [Free plug for the book: if you read, write, think about reading, think about writing, you should read this book. It could really change your world.] Would it be strange to have him autograph it again? And why, oh why?! did I not do laundry in preparation for this? I have only ridiculous pants left to wear. It may be more than this girl can handle.

Dancing with Demons

We all have our own personal demons that haunt us from time to time. Sometimes they pop up and say hello when we least need them to. Or we think we've gone all Buffy on them and they're gone only to return with a different face and a new set of weapons. Or sometimes we conjure them ourselves in order to provide some demented sense of continuity in our lives or to give us some familiar company when no one else will do. 
I had a conversation with a friend last week to this effect. The whole thing devolved into a mutual confession of the specific demons we keep around and we were surprised to discover that we shared more than a few of them. 
I fear one of my most staunch demons has been fiercely guarding this blog for months. It's the one who sneaks up as soon as I log in to write and whispers in my ear. "What have you got to say? You think nobody's thought of that a thousand times before? Why would anyone want to read that?" Yup. It's one I know all too well and I'm sure many do. So this week I've decided that if he's going to hang out with me, I'm going to expose him publicly for what he is. I'll take him out and waltz him around for all to see, so that in doing so, he might lose some of his sway.
 I picture this particular demon as a man in beige. Terrifying in his talent for being completely nondescript. That uninteresting negative void who sucks the creativity out of the room just by showing up with his well-combed hair (is it brown? blond? I can't remember exactly) and his plasticine average looks. He's not even evil enough to be interesting. 
So, strike up the band, we're going to take to the floor, my demon and I. I have things to write and the dizzying demon dance just might rattle a few of them loose.