This evening I taught a serger class. Sergers have multiple needles and can use up to three at a time. The needles are in positions A through E. Tonight, a woman in my class was having trouble fitting the needles where they needed to go. First we had A and C. Then we had A and E.
After many fruitless moments of her needles refusing to do what they needed to do she said to the machine, "Okay, "A" hole, take this needle!"
I snorted.
Okay!
I might be back.
I’ve spent the last three months having some issues with depression, making it difficult for me to write to you, or even to myself, let alone get to work and do a good job there.
Of course there are stories from work. Of course there are. If you can't do a good job, at least get some good stories.
But here’s a story from Charles Dickens. I’ve determined that, with a bit more work, I could be Charles Dickens.
Um, a bit more work and a penis.
I’ve been reading Great Expectations. It’s funny. And sometimes I can hear myself talking the way he writes. I wish we were friends. I think we’d laugh ourselves silly. And cry every now and then. But I found this little bit about Pip getting stuck in a situation that I might get myself stuck in. Such nice people, Pip and I are. We assume other people will have regard for our time and effort. Aren’t we nice?
But we’re foolish, too. So this guy, Mr. Wopsle, he decides that young Pip will be a good little prop to act out this sad, sad story of a hanging. So sad. But poor Pip is stuck being made miserable. He’s a marionette at the mercy of the incredibly irritating oaf pulling the strings.
Here’s Charlie D. You’ll love it. Pretend I’m there with him and reading it to you. Oooooo. It’s fun!
As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately
at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a
gentleman, who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr.
Wopsle had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in
which he had that moment invested sixpence, with the view of
heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he
was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared
to consider that a special Providence had put a 'prentice in his
way to be read at; and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my
accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I knew it would
be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the way was
dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better than
none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into
Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up.
As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell,
I don't know how long it may usually take; but I know very well
that it took until half-past nine o' clock that night, and that
when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the
scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former period of his
disgraceful career. I thought it a little too much that he should
complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had
not been running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course
began. This, however, was a mere question of length and
wearisomeness. What stung me, was the identification of the whole
affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I
declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's indignant
stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in
the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to
murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever;
Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became
sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me;
and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the
fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of
my character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed
the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his head, and
saying, "Take warning, boy, take warning!" as if it were a
well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation,
provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my
benefactor.
So, to continue the story of the angel lady:
I met her for coffee in the morning. She seemed really nervous; I was, too. What the hell had I gotten myself into? That's what I was thinking. I'm not sure what she was thinking, but she wasn't as revved up as she had been the night before.
We both got tea (hers had caffeine--a sure sign of insanity) and sat down. I decided to get it right out on the table. "So I've been wondering about your angel school."
Yes, that's what she wanted to do. She wanted to start a school to teach people to become angels.
"Oh, are you still interested in doing that?" Still? How can I still be interested when I'd never started?
"Well, I'm not sure I'm interested in it, but I am curious. Like, who would teach it?"
I learned that she is very full of the holy spirit and she believes that the more she can teach someone else to become full of the holy spirit the more she, too, will continue to be filled with the holy spirit and then her journey toward becoming an angel will begin. She said things like, "Well, we're small right now" and "as a group together we'll be working toward". She and I were the group. Then she said things like, "God led me to you for a reason. I can show you how to let in the holy spirit. And we'll make this into something bigger. Something that will support my life. And I could pay you. We could get an apartment together. We'd be roommates."
Mm, no.
I said a lot of words like "ah" and "jeez" and "wow" and "dunno". She said God wanted me to read this chapter from the Bible. I read it. I tried to explain that it was hard for me to take the Bible as an authoritative source. She nodded knowingly.
She also said that God told her that he will be descending soon, like within a month.
So when she told me, at the end of our coffee, that I should call her in two or three years when the conflicts she could see in my eyes were resolved, I was kinda surprised. I had expected that I'd be pitched into the lake of fire by next month.
I said something like that. She said, "Oh, don't say that. Don't say that." So I stopped saying that.
I also mentioned that I was a little worried about her. That some of the things she was talking about made it sound like maybe she wasn't entirely healthy. I said that although many of the things she's said are symptoms of being a visionary they can also be symptoms of being mentally ill. I told her that if she were, for example, bipolar, she wouldn't perceive that she was taking on more than she could handle or spending more than she had.
I wasn't quite that clumsy, but I wasn't much more eloquent. I offended her a bit. She also told me, however, that she does have bipolar disorder, although she thinks that the doctors have neglected to take into consideration that it's a spiritual conflict that's occurring. It's not diagnoseable. I didn't dispute that with her. I already felt uncomfortable about our conversation--from alpha to omega.
She offered to make me a star chart. Upon finding out that I was a Cancer, she seemed to back off from being offended. She said she knew right where I was coming from. That I made so much sense to her now. I'm very glad of that. I really didn't want to offend her. And, although I declined the offer of the star chart and admited that I didn't believe in it, either, she said she understood. She could tell.
She has, much to my relief, decided not to buy the sewing machine. She and Jesus had a long talk about it and he says it just isn't the right time. I told her that I was kind of glad to hear that since it didn't feel quite right last night. She was glad to hear me say that. She said that when I was ready, she would tell me a story about that and it would make my heart so warm on the inside. I'm not sure what the story is about, but I've got a warm and smiling heart in store for me, should I choose that path.
This isn't the prettiest way to tell this story. I'm still overwhelmed by the humanity of it all.
And the absurdity.
And the humor. It's dark humor. And I want her to get well, if she needs to or wants to. Perhaps she's heralding the new messiah. But if she's well and is speaking truth or is ill and telling whatever it is that she'll tell, it's still pretty damned funny.
Damned just might be the word.
Tonight I met a woman who was interesting. She surprised me by walking in to buy our most expensive sewing machine. It's a weird thing to do, but not totally bizarre. People do their research at home and then come in and buy stuff. Everybody's different. And people who buy $7000 sewing machines are bound to be different. It's not bad. It's just that decision making strategies are very different for different people when it's about things that cost more than a gallon of milk.
So I was gathering stuff up to pack into the boxes she was going to take home and ladeeda and all we had were machines that were already out of the box and on the sales floor. So I told her about that and she decided to wait for the ones that would come in later that were still sealed.
We were sitting down chatting about the sewing machine and I had her info for financing in front of me and she said she was in between jobs and we were talking the way women talk when they feel as though they have something in common and I was joking around about us going out together because we both had blue eyes (I swear that's the truth--that's the reason I said we should go out; it was a joke.). So I kind of smiled and we chatted some more and we had a bit more in common and she got some tears in her eyes about some of her life events and I also had experienced some of the same life events and we agreed to have coffee together since it's good to have someone to commiserate with. That's what I was thinking. I said, "How about tomorrow?" And so I'm going to have coffee with her.
And then it got really weird. I accept most things people say, if they're strange, as some quirky bit of their personality. We all have things that are extra weird that might come out in conversation sometimes. Maybe a person mentions that his life was saved by a dream he had. Maybe a different person is convinced that she has a guardian angel. Some people pray to Jesus or Mary or the Holy Spirit or the Great Spirit or Mother Earth or what or who ever and are guided by their prayers.
So she mentioned that she was praying to Jesus and that he said she needed to care for her own needs and to be with people who cared about her.
It sounded familiar enough to me.
Then she said that she left her husband because Jesus told her to. Jesus didn't want her to be with a man of a different religion. And Jesus wanted her to change her name (which she did). And she wants to become an angel. And she wants to have a long discussion with me about it.
I think this goes well beyond quirky. In fact, I think it's delusional. And I'm worried that she's unwell. And I'm worried that there are some ethical issues that might apply to me selling a woman a $7000 sewing machine when she's talking to Jesus.
And I think I'll go to sleep and deal with it tomorrow. Wow, though. I really think she's cracked.
I took Indy to the pet store again so she could smell other dogs and people and food. I think she had fun. I bought her a treat that takes Spring and Sprocket a few days to work through. She was done in an hour. So much for "long-lasting!"
When I was there, a family had a five-month-old Newfoundland. Very beautiful, very fluffy, already very big. There were two little boys and a mom. The little boys were being kind of dragged around by it. She said, "Hold onto him, now. You've got to use two hands!"
The time before this, there was a St. Bernard puppy. Very small and very cute--a toy, really. The kind of toy that's kind of strong and spastic and will get to be a really, really big toy someday. His owner motioned to the St. Bernard statue that sits in front of the door collecting money for the SPCA. He said, "He'll get lots bigger, you bet. Probably as big as that statue." The statue is taller than I am. I'm 5' 8". That's a tall dog. I think he was engaging in hyperbole. Nevertheless, that's going to be a big, big dog.
In my mind, I was evaluating these adorable and rapidly expanding balls of fluff that were tugging and panting and wiggling. They are so cute and so cute and so cute. It's the big dog puppies that are like that. And yet in the back of my mind I was thinking, "Wow, you're going to be a whole lotta dog to take care of." And then I thought, "But you're just adorable!"
And so I decided that these baby dogs are undergoing a battle. As witness to the battle, I feel the tug between emotion and logic. A battle with a name written in large, slobbery, fuzzy letters. A battle describing the mad rush of food and energy and sleeping and learning and gaining 60 pounds in less than a year and being all grown up in 18 months! That's a lot of stuff to do.
It's the battle of little big dog.
And it's going on right now.
I was at work tonight when I heard a young woman say, "I am so frazzled this week that it's not even funny."
I know what she means. It has nothing to do with being funny or not funny. She means that she's frazzled more than just the words frazzled express. But why did we start saying that?
My nose tickles so bad, it's not even funny...
I hate being tickled! It's not even funny.
That clown is not even funny.
I can't quite figure out how the phrase got to where it is. How it is. I'm sure someone out there has written something informational about it, but I'm so not interested in looking it up, it's not even funny.
What _is_ funny is dog noses. (Did you catch that? I switched topics using a crappy paragraph hook. So crappy, that the hook is worn down to a little nub and it could slip off at any time if you're not reading carefully. So there's a warning for you.) Dogs can be happy to see you. Dogs are almost always happy to see you unless you're the UPS man. Then they aren't happy to see you AT ALL. But lately I've seen Spring and Sprocket and I've seen Indy. It's a strange phenomenon to come in the door with the dogs all happy to see me and then suddenly it's like I'm not there. There's something else and it's _on_ me but I don't have to be there. I've actually taken off a sweater and let them sniff it while I walked away. They stayed with the sweater.
What must that be like? Do they know where I've been and what I've been doing? Do they know if I played with the dog or just sat in a car where a dog used to be? What do they know? How much do they know? How are they using their information? Are they part of a network of spies? Will they be taking over the fresh garbage cans and barking at three in the morning just for fun?
The possibilities are nearly endless. It's so creepy, it's not even funny.
I'm watching a house and a dog until Saturday. I won't miss the house, but I will miss the dog.
Indy is her name. She came to Christmas with me and my family liked her a lot. My mom loved her coat. She said it was like fox fur. My mom would like a fox coat. I was glad she didn't turn into Cruella DeVille and try to fatten her up to steal her fur. I'm so happy Indy charmed her.
Watching a house is a pretty sweet deal. You learn that you don't need much in the way of personal belongings. You learn that you like those belongings just the same. You get some extra money, and the affection of a doggie. You also get a change of scenery. I like scenery changes from time to time.
And so, having expressed my desire for a change of scenery, I'm going to go change this scenery for that of the bath tub. I'm going to get warm! And clean! And happy!
Welcome, my dears, to a new year with Miss Dotty.
I've been away, as you know, and have been doing an enormous amount! I can't share it with you since I don't remember most of it, but I promise you that I was absorbing, time consuming, and energy intensive.
This year I made a resolution. It's going to be a day-to-day resolution as year-long resolutions tend to overwhelm me.
I'm going to be organized.
That's it. It's not exciting like vowing to travel or sexy like swearing to learn French while drinking Champagne. But if I manage to get organized, then maybe I'll have enough room to do those other things.
My friend Ali gave me two books for Christmas. They were both about clutter.
I already can't find one.
But it's okay. I lost it last year. I can only improve.