Random Items in No Particular Order Saturday, Sep 26 2009

1) I left my writers’ group a couple of days ago, for a variety of reasons, the main one being that I no longer have the energy to critique and edit at the level I feel to be necessary to full participation, especially now that I’m doing so much copyediting.  I didn’t realize how burned out I was until I made the decision; I feel like something mildly toxic has been cleared out of my way.  I think I’m going to join a no-audition community choir that meets once a week, just to see if I can get any movement around my horrible issues with performance and music.  I figure if it gets scary, I can just lip-synch; in a choir that large, who’ll ever know?  Even with something this simple, though, I have to figure out how to navigate it … particularly as far as which section I decide to sing in.  If I sing in the tenor section, which will be my proper range, the size and color of my voice are likely to make it stand out too much.  If I sing with the basses, even if they do a split bass line and I take the upper line, I’ll be vocally uncomfortable due to the tessitura always being at my first/second register passaggio.  This is the reason I don’t usually sing in choirs.  Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try, and see how it goes.  It seems like a very low-key thing, so I can always just drop out if it doesn’t work.

2) Today, thanks to the wonders of social networking, I saw that Mina, my last ex, got married today.  Two things struck me about this — firstly, that I am always right.  One of the reasons I was so adamant about not getting back together with her after we broke up … nearly four years ago now, what an odd thought … was that I was absolutely sure there was someone out there who was a much better match for her.  She pursued the issue for nearly a year, until I finally had to say something unintentionally cruel to get her to drop it.  I’ll never forget it as long as I live, because she heard something I hadn’t meant to say — or rather, I didn’t get to finish my thought.  We were arguing about the wisdom of getting back together, and whether I should give her yet another last chance, as I had done several times during our relationship. I was adamant that I wasn’t going to do it; my position had never changed on that since I decided to end the relationship.  I told her that I wished I’d never met her.  I remember that statement detonating between us, and her hanging up on me.  That wasn’t the full thought I had … what I had wanted to go on to say was that I wished we’d met each other about ten years after we did, when both of us had done a lot more personal work.  Mina and I never had enough really deep things in common to support the kind of relationship I want (and which I am now fortunate enough to have with the Amazon, as far as I can tell) but  we would have done each other a lot less harm if we’d collided further down our respective paths.  I was glad to have gotten through to her, but I wished I hadn’t hurt her feelings so badly in the process.  But anyway … I knew, I absolutely knew, that I wasn’t the right match for her, although in the intimacyphobic’s frantic ”wanting what you can’t have” of loss, she couldn’t see that.  And of course, I was right, as I annoyingly almost always am.

The second thing that struck me is that people who are divorced tend to look at getting remarried in a different way than people who have never been married tend to look at doing it for the first time.  It seems easier for them, somehow … like reverting to something familiar.  Whereas I, at the age of 37 and still single, feel about it more like … a disease I’m kind of proud I never got.  Well, maybe that’s too strong a metaphor.

But I do have an odd idea about marriage, which is that the people who really need the formality of it are people who probably shouldn’t be married.  I think that for many folks, the vow, that external authority, takes the place of the very hard and soul-searching work of getting up every day, assessing yourself and your partner and your life together, and consciously re-committing to it.  I tend to be suspicious of marriage, for that reason.  I hear people who are miserable together say that they are still married because they took that vow.  Well, that’s a really shitty reason, if you ask me.  A vow is only as good as the genuine intent behind it, and if that’s gone, the vow is a mockery of itself.  “Till death do us part” is a great way to fool yourself into a living hell with someone you hate, if you allow that vow to take the place of thoughtful, actual commitment.  And sometimes, commitments are no longer tenable.  It’s possible to love someone deeply, and still not be willing to deal with that person’s behavior.  It’s possible to love, and grow authentically in such different directions that you can no longer see a common goal.  Death isn’t the only way that people part; it’s the final way, but it’s certainly not the most common way.  And it bothers me to see people enslaved to a vow, rather than true to themselves. 

And for that reason, I hardly knew whether to congratulate Mina or not.  Then again, I really doubt she’s thought of the matter along these lines, which is one of the many reasons we weren’t good together.

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Thank You, Helpful UPS Man Wednesday, Sep 23 2009

I just wanted to give a public shout-out here to my UPS delivery driver, who is a paragon of common sense, as the photo below proves.  What better way to camouflage a gigantic box than to put the doormat over it?  And how very, very convenient to put the box in the garden dirt, rather than on the nice clean concrete porch right next to the garden.  All in all, this is American ingenuity at its finest.  Thank you, thank you so much, UPS.

 

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Conflict vs. Drama Wednesday, Sep 16 2009

As I was rearranging my bookshelf today, I came across a book I bought a long time ago; I sat down to look at it again, and I highly recommend it.  It has the rather unfortunate title How to Be An Adult in Relationships, which is off-putting to some people, I think, because is suggests that it is aimed at people who are immature.  In reality, it is aimed at people who realize that much of adult relating has its roots in how we were parented, and how relationships were modeled for us when we were children.  The author is David Richo, who has a straightforward, sometimes overly simplistic writing style, but whose ideas are, I think, extremely valuable and solid.  His approach is integrative; he quotes freely from literature as well as from Jung and Freud.  He does feel that adult relationships have a spiritual component — but not necessarily a religious component; it’s more that he feels one hallmark of adulthood is an awareness of life and callings beyond the immediate self, and that a healthy adult partnership supports that.  As with every book, not every piece of it is useful to every reader, but in reading through it again, I was very impressed with it.  One thing I most appreciate about the author is his rejection of the idea of relationship conflict along “gender-based” lines, and his feeling, which I share, that the Mars/Venus dichotomy, which has been so very popular, is one of the most destructive ways to think about relationships.  He subscribes more to the theory that gender is fluid within each person; every woman has male characteristics, and every man has female characteristics, and using gender as an excuse for conflict is to miss the point.  As I think I’ve said before in another post here, it’s very unfortunate to relegate one’s relationship troubles to “men are this way” or “women are this way.”  The real problem is that you are whatever way you are, and you haven’t learned to heal or work effectively with yourself yet.  Categorizing men or women as problematic is simply to sidestep the fact that, as an adult, you keep attracting or engaging with problematic people.

At any rate, I think the book is very valuable either as an adjunct to therapy, or just by itself, for people who are aware that their unhealthy relationship behaviors have deep roots, and who are interested in a straightforward, hopeful discussion of how that can change — or, if you’re already on the road to working through these issues, how you can continue to support those changes.  One of the best chapters of the book, in my opinion, discusses conflict.  People rarely address the fact that in any relationship, whether it’s a partnership, a friendship, a working relationship, a parent-child relationship … anything at all … the single most essential key to its longevity is the ability to effectively negotiate conflict.  For those of us who did not have healthy conflict resolution modeled for us in childhood, or who have been drawn to partners who needed the thrill of corrosive anger to be happy, this can be a baffling and even frightening arena to step into.  I’m copying below the list of differences between healthy adult conflict versus drama, which I found to be very easy to understand.  If the style of it appeals to you, get the book — it’s full of exactly this kind of thing.  This was also an eye-opener about how many people choose drama over healthy conflict, on a daily basis, in everything they do.

Healthy Conflict: The problem is placed on the table between us, and we see it in perspective.

Stressful Drama: The problem becomes bigger than both of us; we are possessed by it, and lose perspective.

Conflict: We explore the situation.

Drama: We exploit the situation.

Conflict: We address the issue directly.

Drama: We sidestep the issue or cover it up.

Conflict: We express our feelings candidly, taking responsibility for them as our own, without blaming the other or feeling ashamed.

Drama: We use invective to dump our feelings on one another, or engage in theatrical/histrionic displays meant to manipulate, intimidate, or distance the other.

Conflict: We are looking for a way to keep the relationship stable, and we don’t use violence.

Drama: We explode, we act violently, we retaliate, or withdraw sullenly.

Conflict: We remain focused on the present issue.

Drama: We use the present issue to bring up old resentments that contaminate the present process.

Conflict: We are committed to a bilateral style in processing issues and making decisions.

Drama: One of us makes a unilateral or secret decision.

Conflict: The issue is resolved with an agreement to change something for the better.

Drama: The issue remains an open wound with lingering resentment and ongoing stress.

Conflict: Both of us are looking for a way to make the relationship better.

Drama: One of us has to win and the other has to lose.

Conflict: We admit mutual responsibility for our problem.

Drama: We are convinced the problem is entirely the other’s fault.

Conflict: If necessary, we seek thoughtful help from a therapist or support group.

Drama: We refuse help, or we manipulate it in an attempt to justify our personal position.

Conflict: We want both of us to grow from this conflict.

Drama: We want the other to learn a lesson.

Conflict: We let go of our attachment to the outcome we wanted, in favor of a resolution we can both live with.

Drama: We each insist on getting our own way.

Conflict: We are aware of complexities.

Drama: We see only in black and white.

Conflict: It is acceptable to agree to disagree.

Drama: Ambiguity is intolerable.

Conflict: We notice, mirror, and feel deep compassion for the other’s pain.

Drama:  We are so caught up in our own pain that we do not notice the other’s pain, or we think the other deserves it.

Conflict: We admit it if our behavior has its roots in childhood.

Drama: We are adamant that the issue is entirely about the here and now.

Conflict: We each acknowledge how our shadow side might be involved.

Drama: We see the other’s shadow, but not our own.

Conflict: We are centered in mindfulness.

Drama: We are distracted by the mindsets of ego.

 

… of course, it is impossible to practice healthy conflict with a partner who insists upon drama.  In which case, the chapter about unhealthy relationship addiction — and the excellent chapter about ending relationships — are worth an immediate read.

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In Which I Am Very Boring, Plus I Think I May Be Dying But That Doesn’t Alarm Me Enough to Actually Do Anything About It Sunday, Sep 13 2009

1) I am somewhat less than pleased to report that I have become the most boring person in the world.  I am working between 70 and 80 hours per week, which leaves me very little time in which to do anything that would be interesting to blog about.  However, during the past week, I have had these experiences:

– During my morning walk, I ran into a client who ignored my brisk pace and headphones and made me stop to talk to her.  For, like, ever.  I wondered what part of “I’m exercising with headphones on and I want to keep going and not talk to anyone” she didn’t get.  I kept saying, “Yeah well — I’ll call ya later; say hi to Phil for me!” but she just kept on.  And on.  And onandonandonandonandon.  If you look up “oblivious” in the dictionary, her photograph is there. 

– I attended a theater performance with the Amazon (Tomfoolery at CoHo Theater — nice work, Russ!) at which I was seated behind a trio of wayward youths who had clearly either had several drinks or inhaled a lot of smoke prior to the show.  Because, I’m sorry, nothing is that funny. 

– One of my editing projects has become very challenging because the author cannot keep his own characters’ names straight.  One character in particular went from Ajmal to Ahmed to Akhmed to Admaj to Armand in the course of ten pages.  I guess I should just pick one and go with it.

– I noticed an inexplicable strange pile of dirt behind my treadmill.  I suppose this is attributable to the same electrostatic peculiarities that cover the treadmill with a layer of thick dust every couple of days.  I am glad I have this thing in the garage.  I don’t know what would happen if I had it in the house. 

2) Yesterday I woke up with a really excruciating pain radiating from my hip all the way down to my foot.  It was a combination of a bone-deep ache and a burning sensation.  It had kept me awake most of the night, and I was very grouchy in the morning, as the Amazon would readily attest.  There were three possible things that could have been to blame for this:

– A pinched sciatic nerve, which is not unlikely because my pelvis is out of alignment, and I need to go back to the physical therapist and have him yank it back into place again.  This was an unpleasantly personal adjustment that involved him sort of climbing on top of me, grabbing my hip bones, and shoving as hard as he could, while apologizing profusely for “this barbarism.”  It did work, but I am not enthusiastic about having it done again. 

– A virus of some kind; usually my initial symptom is this kind of pain, which lasts a couple of days, and ends up being my version of a 48-hour stomach bug, which is extreme exhaustion and a feeling that I have swallowed a porcupine with a battery acid chaser.  This is much more tolerable than the volcanic spewing version that most people seem to get, so, you know, I’m suitably grateful.

– A potentially fatal blood clot, which doctors have been threatening me with for years due to my cholesterol levels, which have been abnormally high since I was eight years old, and which never go down no matter what I eat or how much I exercise, so I figure that’s just what my body does, and to hell with it. 

Now, what’s interesting to me is that I didn’t really care much about the fatal blood clot option.  I was like, yeah, whatever.  Let’s get it over with.  If I drop dead, at least I won’t have to finish this editing project with the character who has fifteen different names.  I thought briefly about calling the doctor to ask just how worried I should be about this, but instead, I just shrugged and went back to work.

Today I woke up with the leg pain gone, but I had the porcupine and battery acid thing, so evidently it was a virus after all.  This is better than if it had been a pinched nerve, because I don’t really want to get intimate with the physical therapist again.  He’s a nice guy and everything, but I’m just not in the mood.  The down side, of course, is that I have to finish the editing project; merciful Death will not relieve me.  And then the other down side is that whatever I had, it’s probably contagious, and I thoroughly exposed the Amazon to it.  So now I have guilt on top of having swallowed a porcupine.  And that, I assure you, is an uncomfortable combination.

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The Introvert’s Dilemma Wednesday, Sep 2 2009

I think quite a few of my readers are going to be able to relate to what I’m talking about here, because there are more introverts who seek depth communication on the Internet, I think, than there are in three-dimensional life.

I’d like to share some thoughts from my last therapy session, in which we talked quite a bit about why I dread social events.  This came up because I had been to a social event the previous Friday, a potluck held at the home of my voice teacher, whom I have known for a long time, and whom I genuinely love and trust.  The people she has around her are good people with whom I tend to have things in common.  In addition to that, the Amazon went with me, so I had someone to talk to.  Despite all of those positive things, I dreaded going … the kind of dread that is like a crushing weight; dread that sucks all the breath out of the body.  This is such a common experience for me that I usually don’t really think about it; I just try to cope with it.  It makes everything I do exponentially more difficult, however. 

Debbie (my therapist) wanted to know what it was that I dreaded so much.  For a long time, I’ve thought that what I dreaded was feeling displaced, or not feeling part of the scene.  I rarely actually fit in anywhere I go, and I’ve always thought that was at the root of the dread.  But actually, that’s not it.  What I dread is the feeling that my natural mode of social interaction isn’t acceptable. 

There are a lot of theories about what makes introverts and extroverts different, but one of the best explanations I’ve ever heard has to do with the person’s natural level of internal stimulation.  Extroverts tend to “hum” at a lower level, and social interaction revs them up to the point of pleasant functioning.  Introverts, however, are already revved up, and so taking in further stimulus easily pushes us over the edge and becomes overwhelming or extremely tiring; the engine is running too fast.  For this reason, most introverts prefer to take an observer’s stance in social situations.  This is not because we are shy, it’s because we know how much stimulus we can take, and we generally prefer to save that level of tolerance for someone who is really worth it.  But most of us have been given the message, since very early childhood, that this is not an acceptable way to be.

Adults are very, very cruelly judgmental toward introverted children.  They criticize them as being shy or antisocial, not realizing that these children rarely are either of these things — but that the child needs its environment to be on its own terms, in order to avoid painful overstimulation.  It is perfectly possible for an introverted child or adult to be highly socially accomplished, and to have close friends.  But especially in America, the person who prefers to watch and listen, rather than participate at a highly active level, is regarded as damaged or wrong.

At this party, there was another attendee whom I have met before, and who got herself a glass of wine, and sat alone on the couch in the living room for quite a long time.  I told Debbie that when I saw her doing this, my thought was: Why can’t I do that?

“Well,” said Debbie, “that’s a good question.  Why can’t you?”

The answer, of course is “because it makes other people uncomfortable.”  Which made Debbie wonder why I care whether other people are uncomfortable if I’m just being myself.  And of course the answer to that is that my entire formative emotional experience was conditioned to expect cruelty and criticism from people who are uncomfortable.

“People who are truly your friends will check to make sure you don’t feel left out,” Debbie said.  “But if you assure them that you’re happy, and it’s obvious that you’re being honest, most people will leave it at that.  And if they don’t, then you need different friends.  You’re not a child stuck in a classroom or on the playground.  You get to choose what you do now, and whom you spend your time with.”

I thought about this, and about the fact that I would accept a lot more invitations if I thought people wouldn’t judge me for just wanting to sit on the fringes and observe.  I like to do that.  People fascinate me, and I learn a lot about them by watching and listening.  Then, when I have something to say, it’s usually a genuine contribution.  It’s a strange thought to consider that maybe it’s OK to just be the way I am, and not worry about whether other people are bothered by it … to think that it’s their problem, not mine, if they are bothered by it. 

It’s difficult to get past that childhood conditioning of being continually criticized for being who I was, of being harassed by adults who wanted me to play games with the other children, who thought there was something wrong with me.  One of my earliest memories is of being at a preschool that had a small library.  I wanted to go in the library at recess, because they had a lot of books that I didn’t have at home.  The preschool teachers were continually telling me, “That’s bad for you.  You should want to be out with the other children.”

So I still think that.  I’d be happy to take a chair somewhere in the room, and just absorb the goings-on. But I still feel like I’m supposed to want to play with the other children.  I suppose the challenge is mine, really, to take what I want and need from situations like this, and not worry about what other people think.  It’s not like it used to be.  They’re not going to push me off the bus and pull my hair, or stab me with the sharp end of their compasses, or call me names. 

Anyway, that’s my rallying cry for all you introverts.  Stop trying to fit in.  You fit just fine the way you are; it’s everyone else who doesn’t fit with you.

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Death and Delusion Monday, Aug 31 2009

Two things I enjoyed recently:

1) The marvelously quirky film Lars and the Real Girl, a delicately-wrought parable about an emotionally wounded young man who buys a life-sized sex doll and falls in love with it. With that premise, it could easily have been vulgar or unbelievable, but it’s one of the finest films I have ever seen about mental “illness.”  It’s funny, painful, and phenomenally well-acted.  I highly recommend it.

2) Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem.  I get on a jag of listening to this about once a year.  Here’s one of the most challenging soprano solos in the entire liturgical repertoire; it’s particularly difficult to find a voice with enough metal in the timbre to fit with the German style, but enough warmth to illuminate the text and anchor the endlessly long lines.  Edith Mathis does a pretty good job.

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In Which I Have Double Standards Wednesday, Aug 26 2009

This evening I very nearly had a crisis of the worst kind … a Cheese Crisis.  Often I will have  a salad for dinner, and I like to dress it with a couple of tablespoons of plain 25-yr balsamic vinegar, and about half an ounce of crumbled gorgonzola.  Both of these things are so flavorful that a little goes a long way.  But it’s really no good without the cheese.  For a long and horrible moment, I thought I was out of gorgonzola.  As it turned out, I had simply put something else in front of it, and yes, it did take me five solid minutes to figure that out, during which I was quite distraught, but in my defense, I have a bit of a cold, which is making me extremely irritable and somewhat unusually stupid.

Anyway, I found the cheese, and as I put it on the salad, it struck me how odd it is that I will happily eat a tablespoonful of  rank-smelling cultured mold, but you couldn’t pay me enough to touch a public telephone.

I realized I have Double Standards of Disgust, divided into Things I Do and Things Other People Do.

For example, Tolerable Things include:

1) The smelliest, veiniest, most rancid varieties of blue cheese I can find

2) My own cats walking on my kitchen counters and every other surface of my home

3) My habit of drinking cold coffee that I’ve left overnight in my car

4) The fact that I actually like the lived-in scent of sheets after they’ve been on the bed for a week

Intolerable Things include:

1) Other people’s dogs licking, touching, or thinking about me (with rare exceptions for the dogs of friends, who have been properly introduced)

2) Women with long fingernails (how do they get really clean under there?  H0w?  How?)

3) People who flush the toilet with the lid open

4) Fluffernutter sandwiches

 

So you see, I cannot be relied upon to maintain any standards of decency.  This was something of a disappointment, as I like to regard myself as an arbiter of civilized behavior.  But no, give me old sheets and a block of Roquefort, and I lose all sense of decorum.  It’s a wonder that I’m willing to admit this in a public forum; I’m sure I’ll never live it down.

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Author, Author! Tuesday, Aug 25 2009

Oh please, devotees of self-publishing.  Stop. The. Madness.

1) This general had told me directly that he had a special job for me, so I distanced myself from much wine.  Lisette would giggle and toss her head and the fine hair would just wobble and shine around her nice face.  The drink was giving her cause for lots of relaxing ability.

2) The first recall I had from the night before was Lisette.  I was thankful we’d met, but for selfish reasons.  I’d never managed to meet a woman who really held my attention, so it was great to know there was a female on God’s earth whom I could easily enjoy, or for that matter, do enjoy.  I have liked the company of women since I was a lad, but only for short spans of time.  This one fit into a spot in my mental processsing portion of the brain and that had turned me around in my dreams.

3) People like him appears to be very strong and emotionally balanced but are very sensitive from inside and most of the time refrain themselves from indulging into emotional tie-ups as it’s hard for them to handle the pain afterwards, but when it happens, it happens and just cannot be stopped.

4) When I tell these stories in person, verbally, to my friends or an audience they are a lot more funnier, but I thought you might like to read them too.  If you like this book, great!   Thank you.

 

… this kind of thing is why I haven’t been around much lately.  Somebody. Please. Shoot. Me.

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Random Items in No Particular Order Friday, Aug 21 2009

1) Today as I fed the cats, I noticed, not for the first time, the confident advertisement on the bag assuring me that it is ” Delicious and Wholesome!”  I can tell from reading the ingredient list that it is wholesome; it’s probably more wholesome than most things children consume in school cafeterias.  But I cannot fathom how they know it is delicious.  The fact that cats will eat it is no real barometer; if they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat something they don’t like.  From investigating menus at restaurants specializing in foreign cuisine, it is quite clear to me that the definition of “delicious” varies hugely even among the human species.  One man’s curdled yak milk is another man’s nectar.  So even if there is an employee at the cat food factory whose job it is to taste-test the kibble and declare it delicious, I cannot imagine that he really knows what is delicious to a cat.  Dogs, for example, find feline feces to be a great delicacy.  So if you ever see a bag of dog food labeled “Delicious!”, I would recommend you not try it yourself to find out for sure.

2) In an update to the previous post, I have now overcome my Bookworm addiction, after reaching a level sufficient to fleece a few bucks off of some  even less-skilled players.  I’m not sure what this particular catalyst for a change of heart says about me, exactly.  Let’s not consider it too closely.

3) To the person who found this site with the search term “leather smothering” — you know, I think the traditional method is a fluffy pillow.  I don’t think you’re going to get that genuine suffocating contact with a piece of leather.

4) The other day I ran into an octogenarian client who informed me that if Obama’s health care initiative passes, she will no longer be allowed to see her doctor, and probably she will be lined up and shot by a firing squad.  I’m not completely sure whether she was kidding; I actually think she wasn’t.  Personally, I have some odd views on the health care situation; I would like to see unlimited free medical and dental care for dependent children under the age of 18, and for the elderly.  Ditto for folks who are genuinely disabled and can’t work.  I also think that people who do not file tax returns should not be eligible for any social services whatsoever; implementing a law such as that would have prevented my drug-addicted cousins in California from sucking at the teat of the state for the past twenty-five years.  I’d like to see services extended to folks who live in areas where jobs aren’t available, where there has been climate-and-weather-related devastation; where they’ve been handed a raw deal that wasn’t their fault.  Human compassion dictates that we should do this.  I don’t like the idea of human compassion being organized by special interest groups and the government, but that’s another rant for another time.

However, I will also say that for the past twenty years, I have never lacked for dental or medical care.  And why is that?  It’s because I made it a priority.  At one point I worked three jobs, to make sure I could afford my health insurance premium, and to make sure I could pay for routine dental care.  In a down economy, I am working two jobs, partly to make sure that I can continue to afford my private health coverage.  I realize that not everyone could afford to pay for coverage even if they did work three jobs, due to local area economy — and for those people, I have nothing but sympathy.  But I know a lot of folks who can’t afford health coverage, but who can somehow afford to go out to eat several times a week, and who can afford to buy expensive electronics and other toys.  It’s difficult for me to shed a tear when they whine about not being able to go to the doctor.  Maybe growing up and getting priorities straight would be a good idea for those of us who really *can* afford to take care of ourselves.  Sure, it requires some sacrifice.  Get over it.

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Of A Worthless Time-Waster Sunday, Aug 16 2009

Many of my regular readers may have noticed that I have been blogging less of late.  There are many good reasons for this.  I am in the middle of a major change to my business, which I cannot disclose here on this blog because it is A Big Secret Which Must Remain Unspoken, even though I blog under a nom de plume.  It’s such a big secret that it has to be even more anonymous than my anonymity already makes it.  So that’s taking up a lot of time.

In addition to this, I have a full plate of editing projects, which are also taking a lot of time.  Right now I am editing a novel about an American army captain in France during World War II.  This should be interesting, but isn’t, due to the horrific quality of the writing.  For example, the captain meets a young schoolteacher in occupied France, and this is part of their interaction:

Her thick head of hair shook when she laughed at my joke, though I had not meant it as such.  This cute woman went right through my manly defenses.  My eyes could not hide the secret of my liking for her. 

After 80,000 words of this, I’d be happy to have a bomb dropped on my house.

But I have to confess that the real thief of my time lately is a game on Worldwinner called “Bookworm.”  This game is an unholy combination of Scrabble and a Jumble; the player is faced with a screen of letter tiles, and the object of the game is to form words by linking them together.  The longer the word, the more points you win.  As you make words, certain tiles change colors to be bonus tiles, so if you use them to make a word, you get more points.  Some of the tiles start to “burn” after a while, and you have to use them or the screen catches on fire, which is disconcerting to say the least.

When I started playing this game, I was very bad at it.  This pissed me off.  I know a lot of words.  I work as a proofreader; I should be good at finding words in a complete mess of unintelligible crap.  But I wasn’t good at it.  I’m also not good at Scrabble, and that pisses me off, too.  However, in this case, I was so completely pissed off that I was determined to get better at the game.  I don’t know what’s more disturbing — the fact that this actually is the kind of thing a person can get better at with practice, or the fact that I have spent time trying to get better at it.  I have gotten quite a bit better, advancing from the rank of “shelver” to the rank of “proofreader”  (the game rankings are rather amusingly referential to library functions) but I can see, from looking at the worldwide rankings, that there are people far, far better at this game than I will ever be.  I don’t know how they do it.  I should be better at this game than anyone in the whole world, because I say so.

Part of the problem is that the game itself is an ornery, unfair hypocrite.  For example, it will accept tits, arse, and mons as valid words, but not quim.  It will accept sou and lira, but not franc.  It will accept qua but not hoc.  It will accept pee, but not crap.  It refuses to accept perfectly reasonable words I make up, such as gubbly and warkel.

I fear that the love-hate relationship I have with this game, as with many love-hate relationships, will devolve into something sordid requiring therapy and some restitution I can’t afford to pay.  Please direct me to the nearest twelve-step word game group, before I am lost to reason.

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