Mensching out the Munchausen… dribble from my Yiddisher Kop

The Spiel: Shmagegie Mishigatz

I have been listening to podcasts and jotting down little sentences and ideas that resonate with me. Staying positive, growing as an individual, maintaining boundaries, building integrity, creating value that is not dependent on other’s people’s perception/acceptance, while perpetuating good karma are all things I tussle with. Sometimes these bits of reflection serve as reinforcement towards the path I wish to walk upon in whatever life is left for me. I haven’t mastered any of the concepts of which I preach. It’s all a game of trial and error. I’m an emotional patchwork quilt of both sides of a Velcro patch. Some shit inherently sticks, others slide off and end of into a dirt puddle in a Home Depot parking lot. Some is worth cleaning off and drying out for another toss. Some is meant for sewage. Others are meant to wash up the road near the discount perfume store for someone else to pick up and evaluate for personal value.

So, I don’t have a specific topic… I’m just going to riff on a few things in my head to make room for more nonsense.

My life is a strange hybrid of various stages of grief (bargaining, anger, and acceptance, etc.) I vacillate between how I wish life could have been and how it turned out. I stand on the corner in the heat and flip signs; busking for hope to cultivate what I can still change to work in my favor. There is a proverbial hourglass filled with sand (and glitter, of course) that races me to hurry up and get things done before it’s too late.

Um… Who determines when things are too late? Who decided a 12-year old under-developed mosquito-bitten bissel is better than a well-seasoned 40-year old for starting a music career? Why did I have to choose motherhood or a career in the arts? Frankly, at 12, I sounded like every other Annie-wannabe twat. It wasn’t until I chose my own music idols and pushed out a few kids that my diaphragm started working in my favor, anyway. You wouldn’t have purchased my album with me sounding like Ethel Merman as an angsty tween and writing about scrunchies and why my parents sucked for not letting me have a dog. Why now that my kids can make their own damn ramen is it too late for me to be relevant? Why do you have to marvel at how much younger I look than my actual age in order for me to get a fucking golden buzzer? I learned early on that Cee-Cee Bloom’s life wasn’t charmed, but I sure wanted to be her over the hand-walking qu**r.

Ps- Now my songs are about all the dogs I have. 

What about the woman who worked 80+ hours a week towards a joyful retirement and never enjoyed a day in her youth… only to be left with a broken body, too tired and in pain to appreciate her sack of money? And then, she had a stroke at her retirement party the day before her world cruise was to set sail? I’m sure that’s a real story… I bet she was shaking her fist at the sky as she ascended on the golden escalator to Heaven… or whatever. Was it her bosses’ fault? Her partner’s? Her dad’s fault for instilling principles of earning the rest and recreation that she never got to experience?

I’m putting this one down for a minute… New rant. 

***Disclaimer: this next opinion is unpopular among some of the shmendricks in my life. Ensure you are wearing something absorbent before reading the next paragraph. Maybe skip down to the next bolded topic to ensure you don’t miss the pearls of wisdom you may think you don’t need by thwarting the gems you actually DO…*** 

Medical crises and global pandemics should not be Partisan.

There. I said it. 

I don’t care if you bathe in the same trough as your spray-tanned sultan or not. If you chose not to get vaccinated and are perpetuating the mutation and spread of this thing based on what your former fat orange fuck told you not to do: fuck you. I love you, still. But, I hope you get COVID and really struggle with the feeling that you may succumb to this for a good, long time. And while you’re peeking through the Percocet-laden perplexities of the life you are about to leave behind, vurping on a ventilator, (while I’m sweating my balls off in these masks all day at work); I hope you look up, see G-d, make a pact not to be an asshole anymore, and ya’ have a revelation. I hope you live to see the light… I also desire that you awaken from this and that you’re left without the sense of taste: forever. Or that whenever you take a shower, the lingering smell of diarrhea after eating too much curry permeates the room for 20 full minutes before the herbal essence kicks in.

While you poison yourself on sodium nitrates, benzoates, spammy high fructose corn syrups and fiber glass fags while questioning the safety of what’s in the vaccine like some organic hipster Whole Foods whore in tik-tok yoga-pants like the Greta Fucking Thunberg that you are NOT; I hope the “chip” you’re thwarting picks up the hyperbole in your head; sends a signal from your phone (the actual ‘tracking chip’), and lets aliens know when and where you’re taking a dump. I hope they catch you mid-squeeze and beam you up to the tinfoil turban tapestry of tsuris for regular, non-consensual anal penetration. Love, all medical people and scientific thinkers.  I still love you. 

“That’s all I have to say about that.” – Forrest Gump.

Wait, there’s more…

Quotient of quotes I heard this week: 

“If you don’t make peace with your wound, you will be tempted to despise the wounded.” 

 

I think Father Gregory Boyle said that. Most therapists become clinicians to treat the diseases that they have been impacted from. Transference is a real thing. I’m a magnet for the wounded, because I, myself am wounded. It’s the star-bellied concept of feeling good among your own kind. There are also so many people with stars upon thars, that I’ve come to notice that we are all wounded in some way. What we do with failure determines who we are.

 

Jesus also said something about bringing forth what is within you, or what is within you will destroy you. Hence, I blog.

 

I think Plato said “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

 

You know, the idea of self-reflection and examination should be an ongoing process. My issue is that I want to grow and evolve, constantly. However, I have these people around me who are holding me accountable to a former version of myself. It’s a rigid box and I loathe it. I can’t apologize enough for the wounds I have caused, and the words/deeds I put out into the universe that others have held onto as excuses for remaining wounded. And yeah, I do think we have a choice on how to process wounds. I wrote a letter to a friend a week or so ago and riffed on how the 15-year old pulled from the rubble of the Surfside building collapse will have a choice to remain a motherless victim of an assault on his safety or use the life-spare as a sign to live a life of value. Which one he chooses (and the success of that which is understandably reliant on the support he is given at this young age) is far more interesting to me than the wallets and bodies they collect for funeration and closure for the survived.

 

So, how long do I maintain accountability for other people’s inability to process and move forward? How long do I lick their wounds before I have paid enough penance? When do you deem a rapport irreparable and no longer serving of emotional growth? How long do we keep people around out of guilt and fear and allow them to Virginia creeper vine all over your potentially expansive abilities to turn from a potted office orchid to a fucking tree? (*Grows one plant in 41 years and fashions herself a green-thumbed PLANT-thropist).

I want to stop feeling responsible for the ultimate happiness of others. I wish to release the need to insure that everyone else’s time with me is not wasted if the end result isn’t that of happiness and longevity. Like, if I can’t promise a future that somebody wants, that their time with me up until that point will be wasted. Does that make sense? Can someone say they wasted their 30’s, 40’s 50’s on a person and blame them if it didn’t pan out to the life they wanted? Is it my/our/your fault if now one’s youthful, attractive years are gone and finding space for new companionship is harder? Is it my fault for not maintaining the former version of me and all that entailed for someone else? It’s a lot to take on. Is anything promised? How do we know that anyone will even live past tomorrow? Plans change. Goals change. I don’t just mean this with love and marriage. I mean this with platonic friendships, too. How should I know how this will all turn out? I grapple with the guilt that I’m not enough and when things crumble, as I morbidly predict they will, that I’ve wasted people’s time investing into me. I guess that comes from the daddy issue. He reminded me a lot of how much money and time he wasted on me. Wow. I learned something about myself just now. 

It’s the people who wait around for the end result that are disabled from enjoying the ride.  I’m tired of feeling obligated to someone else’s choice to wait for me to change personality or interests or be more available, somehow. What if my kids move out and I choose to move to Paris or Oregon or Idaho? What if I choose to become the sexless lesbian, jewelry curator in a hemp shop who plays the dulcimer that I’ve always been meant to be? What if I don’t invite anyone from this era on to my next journey? Who is to say what I will need or want or be in 5-10-20 years from now? Why am I beholden to promise my forever away when I am constantly shedding older versions of me and growing new skin? 

I didn’t think I would make it to 40. Many times, I prayed I wouldn’t. What if after working in a life of public service and entertainment and drowning in people, that I choose to move to a rainforest and surround myself with monkeys and shit? 

I suppose I am taking on smaller projects of renovation, rather than doing what the former version of me would do- (which was to bulldoze everything to the ground, start over; and then spend ions in pools of regret, guilt, shame and longing). I want to surround myself with more like-minded people, but the most productive people who are working on themselves are doing the work, exploring, and are swimming in emotional fitness... Accordingly, these types are not always available for meet-ups and healthful infusions. Which leads me to think maybe I need to enjoy being alone more and not choose company as a distraction from what I don’t like about myself. Quietness and alone-ness should not equate to loneliness.

I’m tired of selfish people who spend every conversation assessing what is wrong in their lives and who make no conscious effort to fix it. I work hard every day at repairing and tweaking myself and when improvements are evident, my integrity or methods of improvement are questioned. I want to learn to say “thank you” when I am praised. I want to believe it when people think I am great and not look around the room to ensure that everyone is getting equal praise or that I thank my mom and Jesus and my agents and partners before I can accept the emotional trophies from my personal  labors. Dad used to make sure that I understood I was only good in plays because he paid his hard earned money for theater camp. Mickey wouldn’t let a round of applause go by without me motioning to the band and letting everyone know people only enjoyed the song I sang because HE wrote it. I have some similarities with jealousy and inequity now in  present company that needs evolution or demolition. It’s an old game of shame and I’m tired of it. I’ve earned my place among healthy people and I’ve earned my merit badges for professional accolades. 

 

Putting yourself down is not modesty, its self-obsession.

 

I regularly surround myself with patients and peers who are drowning in themselves. A friend jokes that someone has “a bad case of the ME’s.” It’s like they lean into self-pity as currency… for love. They thrive on the same passion they infuse in anger and mistrust that they could be using for a stronger energetic force towards love and repair. The excuse is that they can’t do anything else, because they are ‘working on themselves’ and have to secure their own oxygen masks before helping others. It’s a good analogy. I’ve used it a lot. Only, these people are sucking so much oxygen from the masks, that they’re hyperoxic and haven’t realized that everyone has already deplaned and moved on with life while they’re still close-eyed, nails dug into moldy arm rests and praying to land….

 

What we do with failure is who we are. It was worth repeating. It wasn’t an accident.

 

I’ve been perpetually scared of failure. My father used to constantly judge me and my accomplishments. He worked on imaginary lists of failures, accomplishments and line items to add to my “tab” of expenses and sacrifices that created the inequity between us (that inherently eradicated our rapport). I chose not to go back and shorten that run on sentence. Talking about him is usually in a run-on sentence where you can barely catch your breath before ending the thought.

 

The influence he left is remnant and I still always strive to be the best. I don’t take failure well. We can get 30 “yes, they’re amazing- REHIRE” reviews in a row; and if one, shitty restaurant owner doesn’t like Dua Lipa, he ousts us and I’m fetal. That’s something I am working on. I try not to let the obsession of being adored by everyone overtake my ability to let go and be in a moment. But I see a person with a shit-smell look on or who is violently thumbing their phones and I assume it is all about how much they despise me. I try to resonate on the quote:

 

You wouldn’t be as concerned with what people thought of you if you knew how seldom they did…

Usually, this is accurate. The manager at Shooters just got reamed out by his boss for poor sales due to rain and table 12 is actively Yelping about racist treatment because they couldn’t stay for a 10^th drunken hour. He’s texting. He’s angry and vaguely glancing in my direction. Its 900 degrees. He’s sweating. He hasn’t peed in 10 hours. I’m assuming his grimace is because he hates the song I’m singing and is wondering why our act is there so much and he hates our set list. I was wrong.

Cut to new venue. The restaurant owner texting during our second set the other night triggered me. Everyone seemed to love the show. Strangers invited us to come visit them in their home states (Colorado and Nashville) because we were “so great.” I decided not to let this manager guy get the best of me and ruin my performance. I was wrong, then, too. He was actually texting the agent that we were not the right fit. (Ps- Fuck the Stealers Wheel.)

But why does it matter? Why does that mean everything to me?

Subsequently, why could he not recognize the talent and integrity of the band and ask for different songs, to turn down, to meld to his own personal choices? Man, we have done everything from jazz to hard grunge. Why bad mouth or assume it is not the right fit?

People are not open to change from being judged.

 

When did people stop communicating?

 

Oh, I know: when people stopped being receptive to criticism.

 

I’m a LibTARD who is open to change. You want to change your pronouns? Do it. If I have been calling you he/him for 25 years, give me a little leeway on the potential that I may fuck it up, but I will work hard to try and honor your preferences. Why not? 

Are old sayings racist? I will stop referring to the main bedroom as “master bedroom” or saying “isn’t that the pot calling the kettle…” Easy. Done. I say, don’t generalize and assume every libtard such as myself is going to be super sensitive and go fetal when you screw up my pronouns (or vex you if you vote for people who are inherently narcissistic and intellectually inept). 

Talk to me.

 

Sometimes, the best communication is no communication. Sometimes people want to be assessed and want clear direction on how to fix things. Sometimes people don’t want you to judge or point out every little thing you notice about them or wish they would change. Other times, it’s best just to be warm and model your own approach to life in order to evoke change. If your friend feels fat, invite her to a yoga class. Change your diet and model the behavior. Pray she gets motivated by you initiating change. She will likely continue to accuse you of doing coke and Adderall, but that’s her own lack of initiative speaking. Don’t retreat because other people are sick and find it easier to seep toxicity than cheer you on for being a little ahead. Let them screen shot your accomplishments and shit talk behind your back. Pretend you didn’t know they did. Keep going.

 

Sometimes, it’s good to announce good deeds because it inspires others to also do good shit. Sometimes, it doesn’t all need to be publicized for the proverbial back pat, unless this is the secondary gain you require to keep doing good.

 

I did a cool thing at work and announced it on the Facebook. But I also didn’t tell you about the times a truck driver waves at me or lets me pass and I go out of my way to call that number on the back of their truck and let their supervisors know that they’re driving GREAT! (I mean, now I did. But no one reads my blogs and if they do, they probably didn’t make it this far). I feel it’s important to let people know when they’re doing great, looking great, or changed the way I feel on a positive note. I do that with the same vigor that I don’t return store-bought items or food at restaurants when it’s the wrong order, undercooked, and ill-fitting (clothes, I mean). I don’t tell on people on the road who drive shitty (I still curse and make angry faces) and I don’t report jerks to supervisors-unless I have truly soul searched and determined that I cannot redirect my own processing or fix it on my own. Maybe it’s my way of being kind or maybe it’s the desire to be liked because I’m insecure. Either way, I don’t go out of my way to make people feel bad in honor of my personal preferences and comfortability. 

 

I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do. I’m just saying that’s what I do. Like, often and not always. If I piss you off, when you’ve cooled, talk to me in a way that is constructive and helps me to see the impact I had. Teach me, don’t berate me with the same vigor of hurt I may have inadvertently imposed. Being defensive hardens the heart and makes us less permeable to absorb the intentions of what you’re conveying. I’m not even certain what any of the means anymore.

 

I guess… just don’t be a dick, ok? And life is short. So, eat the cake; whether its gluten free and organic that you’ve earned after a keto-friendly workout… or eat a hotdog deep fried in a donut even though you’re diabetic. Whatever. Just be fucking nice.

And keep shedding and growing and processing. Keep examining. If you wanna change your clothes, your mind or your name and those around you won’t allow it; get new friends.

Love,

SAM 🖕🏻