silver linings

I know. It's been a while.
Writing blogs can be scary, and it was tempting to go the safer, easier route and let this flaming gopher go silently into the night, like my Twitter account from years past (though I still get emails about the stupid thing--I don't think I've posted since 2009, but just this week I discovered that I have a new follower and that my password has been changed because it thinks my security has been compromised). But the blogging world will always call to me, even when I'm finding it nearly impossible to write about myself.
It's been a rough few months. This sounds like a cliché, but it's so true ... I feel like I don't know who I am anymore. I've been afraid to type out words, because I'm afraid that either I won't like the person who reveals herself on the screen, or ... I'll see that she is nothing.
I tried to write an entry in a personal journal. I diligently forced out a few paragraphs, but I felt like I was in an awkward conversation with myself that wasn't really going anywhere, and I wished there were a third me who could suddenly show up and save me from it, or at least who I could pretend to get an emergency text or phone call from.
Putting even a little bit of yourself out there is scary. My last blog was mostly ignored and also used as a forum for personal attack. But I want to write. Not because I think I'm good at writing, but because writing added a dimension to my life that I'm lacking now. So, I'm telling myself I'm going to do nanowrimo (I never even make the quintuple digits, and I'm not expecting to this year, but it'll be something) and I'm also going to try to bring back those joyous days in which I would write inane blogs about my daily life and not care what anyone thought.
I'm going to challenge myself to try to see the positive aspects in negative events. I'm not going to say that ALL negative events can be seen as positive, but when you try, it's surprising what an optimistic spin you can put on your life. Some examples:
EXAMPLE ONE: Yesterday, a sick morbid curiosity led me to do a web search on how many calories are in beer. It turns out that my favorite beer, Blue Moon, has more calories than pretty much any beer, almost twice as many calories as Miller Lite.
THE POSITIVE: Rather than seeing this as bad news, I'm seeing it as wonderful news, because if Blue Moon has that many calories, imagine how many calories I could save if I stopped drinking it? So, starting today, or maybe starting after I finish the cans of Blue Moon in Aaron's fridge, I will begin the Miller Lite revolution. I imagine that after a month or two I will have a Keira Knightley-esque physique. So, you see, all things happen for a reason, because if I had never tasted Blue Moon in the first place, then I would never feel like I was being diet-friendly by drinking Miller Lite.
EXAMPLE TWO: My entire life I have been plagued by having a face that is such a unique form of grotesque that people feel the need to label it as tired, angry, miserable, or some other emotion that it's not currently conveying.
THE POSITIVE: This has taught me to analyze conversations and social etiquette to a degree that I think makes me pretty much a certified sociologist and certainly less socially inept than the average Applied Systems employee or gas station clerk. Let's look at two conversations that happened within the past week.
CONVERSATION ONE
(Mandie is filling her water bottle at the sink, around 3 on a Monday afternoon)
RANDOM COWORKER I DON'T KNOW: Wow, having a rough Monday, huh?
MANDIE (hesitant to say anything because she feels an insult against her face coming on, tries to just make some kind of sound that could mean everything and nothing and hopes the conversation will end there): Uhhrnnnghuh.
RCIDK: Hey, I said, having a rough Monday, huh?
MANDIE: Why? Do I look like it?
RCIDK: Every time I see you walking around here, you always look like this. (Completely slackens arms in an ape-like fashion, slackens face as well, droops mouth, juts out jaw like a Neanderthal, and adopts a slumping posture, overall looking like Frankenstein's monster if he didn't have any bones and had just taken a triple dose of Vicodin)
MANDIE: Wow. I feel so beautiful right now.
CONVERSATION ONE- ANALYSIS
This conversation was awkward, and it was Mandie who was at fault. While it is pretty clear from context that RCIDK did not actually care about the quality of Mandie's Monday and didn't give a crap whether or not she had in fact had a rough day (in fact, he indicated she looks like this all the time, rendering his initial comment even more meaningless), Mandie should have taken the comment as such in order to avoid awkwardness. Rather than ask the question that we all KNOW isn't going to have a good answer, she should have just responded, "Actually, no, I'm having a pretty good day. How about you?" Then, she may have even made a new friend, been able to give RCIDK a name, and through warmth and caring rather than self-defensiveness, torn down all his misconceptions about people with weird faces and quietly taught him a lesson in tolerance.
CONVERSATION TWO
(Mandie is buying food at a gas station (I know, I told my self no more gas station food, I am cutting down))
GAS STATION CLERK: Are you okay?
MANDIE (politely): Yes, I am. (See, she's learning. This happened after conversation one.)
GSC: Oh, 'cause you don't LOOK okay.
MANDIE: This is just how I look in the morning, I guess.
CONVERSATION TWO- ANALYSIS
This conversation was also awkward, but in this case, the blame rests entirely upon GSC. You see, if you are truly concerned about the current emotional state of a stranger you're only going to interact with for about 45 seconds, you don't follow up your concerned comment by insulting her appearance. You would instead say, "Alright. Hope you have a good day." Then not only are you giving her the impression that you find her face acceptable after being given the initial reassurance required in order to process it, but you're also brightening her day. And providing good customer service. And ensuring she would return to your gas station, even though by ensuring that you're actually setting her back a lot because she's trying to not eat gas station food anymore, but hey, at least she's drinking Miller Lite now, so maybe she can afford to splurge a little.
The time now draws near for me to go to the cat place, so I must bring this entry to a close. I'm not even going to read it before i post. I'm glad I wrote even when I didn't have anything interesting to say, because it got me into writing again. Even if I'm just writing about stuff I always write/talk about, like beer and my face. I promise that there is more to me than beer and a face. I promise that in the coming posts, I will come up with a much more colorful array of subject matter. Or at least I'll find new, colorful, possibly metaphorical ways to describe beer and my face.