Lessons

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Counseling again today. And I run smack into a known, but so far insoluble problem. How to connect to people when I have no shared interests. Food as a subject bores me, irritates me. If I could stay healthy with a pill (as the SF of the fifties promised) I so would. No grocery shopping, no cooking, no cleaning up after. And the people I work with? Gourmands, love the Food Network, wax rhapsodic over recipes (chemical directions, to me), and diet to fight their (mostly non-existent) fat. I draw away, and keep silent, rather than criticize or make negative comments. But this leaves them feeling like I'm pushing them away. Guys don't care if you contribute to a conversation, ask them about their team, and let 'em talk. Ok, only sports guys, but that's the analogous population.

But only seeing the "can't" doesn't help me join in. Which I need to. This is how I lay a groundwork of good will. I've never known how to do this. Nearly every work group I've been in, any subject I could find interesting was ridiculed or labeled snobbish, by those around me. Cats? People at work have no problem telling me straight out they "Hate cats." I've had my musical tastes ripped apart, old movies or challenging books - no good - I get blank looks at best. Maybe I need to be more like the devoted Trekkies who proudly wave their freak flag. My silence is, I think, what is being misread. It's a place for others to write their own insecurities.

So, my job this week is to come up with ways to join in. I'm leaving food, because it's fraught. My mother battled her weight with yo-yo diets and despair. There was intermittently not enough food in the house, and money for food always mattered. I don't like sharing food, or making it, except with very close friends. And even then, I prefer a restaurant. Food is a chore, of similar interest as vacuuming or laundry, only with the added element of money.

So, what else? I've never known how to reach out when I've been dismissed. Or how to find a way into a discussion where I have nothing positive to say. I can't even express interest without lying. But I must find them interesting as people, as human souls. I have to find the compassion to reach out in a way that is genuine, but not about the job.

Start by asking questions, sure. That's one thread.

I can't hope to interest any of them in what I love. That's never worked. And insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This is where I have to learn to reach out.

Lessons not learned do keep coming back, in harder form. Dammit.

Sky

Herhimnbryn gave me this assignment.

Overheard conversations while buying the groceries. Post them on your blog.
Buy sticky labels, write your wisdom on them and then stick them in public places.
More moods of Moby.
Photograph the sky from your balcony every day at the same time for a week. Save the images. Make postcards of the images.

Be silly.


I haven't been in public places enough to do the stickies, but I will consider this a long term project. As soon as I manage some wisdom, too. People in grocery lines here don't really converse, except on their cell phones. Haven't overheard any good conversations anywhere this week. Have done several Moby Moods, as you may have noticed. And I am always silly, proof will have to come later. I wanted to ask my fellow cat volunteer to take a photo of me while I brushed one cat in a lower cage, while the cat in the upper one played with my hair, but she had her hands full herself.

I got five out of the last seven days. On Saturday, we were at Roller Derby, so I missed my 1915 time slot. And one day I just forgot until it was dark. Here are the five, though. Not sure how to make postcards, so I post them here. The sky is lovely, the frame for it, not so much. Still, I have a lovely view of the sky that my own eyes edit quite well.

Lint

And from Phil Plasma

1. Try writing a post where none of the words contain the letter 'e'.

2. Try writing a post where each sentence contains words where the first letter is the same in all but a few of the words, using a different first letter in each sentence.

3. Expound upon the virtues of collecting various forms of lint.


#1 (Just a haiku, which has constituted whole posts.)

Motors roar, radios boom
Trains run away on rails
Longing for spring mud.

#3

I've heard that homemade paper can be made from dryer lint. My one attempt was grossly inept, and utterly unsuccessful. If ever I can gather more useful tools and supplies, I'd love to try again. It feels like it really should work, and I love rough paper, would love to paint the sheets with black ink and brushes.

In the fiction, I have thought about how every human is studied, part of the data, not just a sample, but all knowledge becomes a very real collective consciousness, a massing of data to make decisions upon. At some point, even the lint in navels will be studied, and it may give them some small, but interesting, insight into how the world works. Regular clothing lint, most collected during weaving and fabric creation, will also be a salvaged commodity for making felts for screens and hats, tents and shoe liners.

Lint could be a love token between eccentric people, kept in each other's pockets, of course.

Crying uncle on #2 for now, but I'll keep it in mind.