9/18/17
Our cat
Mavis wasn’t a very good cat. If I had to grade her I’d give her a passing
grade, because she was a decent mouser, but that is it. No affection, she’d
ducked when we went to pet her. Weeks would go by without us seeing her. The
only reason we knew she was gone (I mean dead) was that mice kept showing up.
We wondered, is she coming back this time or did she just go someplace to die?
About a
month after we had last seen her, someone on our neighborhood forum stated that
they found a cat that was white, skittish and emaciated. I wondered if it was
her so I emailed the woman. I asked her
to send me a picture and she didn’t know how. So I just asked her, “does the
cat look like Hitler?” I can’t imagine what she thought about that. Mavis had a
black mark under nose that made it look like a Hitler’s iconic mustache. I
can’t remember the woman’s response, but she did seemed confused by my
email. I asked her if I could come and see the cat. This must have scared her
thus motivated her to figure how to email a photo. I got the photo, the cat did not look like
Hitler. It was not Mavis. The mystery remains, Mavis is gone, assumed dead and we know not how.
9/19/17
Our
current cat, Lester, is a joy. The dogs still mess with him too much for him to come into our living room, where most of the living in our house
takes place, but if you are in my office or preparing a meal in the kitchen, he
is there. Our living room is gated off from the rest of the house because our
dog Woodrow is a counter surfer. This makes more than half the house Lester’s
domain.
If you
ask my wife, she will claim that he is named after a Cubs pitcher. If I am
asked, I will say he’s named after an ex-Red Sox pitcher. Since these are
one in the same, Jon Lester, it seems silly that we make this distinction, and
yet we do. He brought World Series victories to both of our teams. The cat could also have been named after a character on HBO’s The Wire, but really, it isn’t very
important. It is a good name, for a great cat.
When we
go upstairs each night to expire for the evening, he follows us upstairs. He
comes into the bathroom with us as we prepare for bedtime and then he joins us
in bed along with Woodrow. Our other dog, Hazel, sleeps beside the bed. She is
not much of a cuddler.
I like
my pets more than I like most humans. This is obvious if you know me even for a
short amount of time. Pets, animals in general, completely lack pretense.
Nuances in your relationship are few and you always know where you stand. Human
relationships are far more complicated. I am introverted and really struggle
with being social. I stand around at parties, sometimes full of people I know
and like, and struggle to find something to say. When I was a teenager, I
started drinking heavily to deal with it. I’d get drunk on the weekends and
have a grand old time. It was courage in a bottle. This continued throughout
college into my 20’s until after I graduated. I eventually gave up drinking
entirely for about ten year. No AA, nothing like that. I just realized what a
crutch it was. There are still few people I know that I don’t struggle with
social interaction … but I can’t say this about a single pet hence the
preference for cats and dogs.
I drink
a little now, but for better reasons. Not for courage, but simply for flavor. I
have a beer, maybe two, with dinner sometimes. Rarely do I have more than that.
I might feel buzzed occasionally but I don’t get drunk anymore. I see no reason
for it. Now that I’ve figured things out, there is no need for it. It has been
years, maybe decades, since I have been out right plastered.
Social
anxiety is easy now. I simply run away. I discovered this while in college.
While at a party, when I was feeling anxious, I’d just leave. Often these
parties were down at the beach in Rhode Island, I’d leave the party without
telling anyone and go for a long walk on the beach usually in the middle of the night. Ah, alone time. Sweet
relief. I feel like myself again.
Running
away works long term as well. You have
someone in your life that depresses you or consistently makes you angry … run
away. I haven’t run away from a pet yet.
9/20/17
Running
away can take many forms, like avoiding the family holidays because they
depress the hell out of you. It helps if you live far away. Telecommuting is
another form of running away. You don’t have to deal with the outside world at
all… no commute and minimal office politics. I have an ideal life now. It does
get lonely but I have Facebook, Twitter and various other toys. In this way
running away doesn’t take an effort at all. If someone makes you feel awful,
intentional or otherwise, there is no reason you need to keep that person in
your life. Follow these instruction, back your bag and leave. It is that simple.
I took
Woodrow for a lunchtime walk today. I leave my other dog, Hazel, at home when I
do this because she is aggressive toward other dogs. We control this by simply
leaving her at home. I drove to the town trails behind our elementary school
and had a nice walk. The leaves are in the early stages of changing now. It is
a great time of year for a walk. When I got home Hazel was outside. We don’t know how she
gets through the fence. I think she is opposite of me. She doesn't like being alone.
9/21/17
This may seem like a lonely life, but for the most part, it is not. The little amount
of human interaction I get is sufficient for me. Besides, a little bit of loneliness is
preferable to dealing with the drama of annoying people or interoffice
politics. I am also very lucky. I
generally don’t use that term, but I lack a better one for the fact that I
found my wife. She is social enough for both of us. She is my social conduit.
Tonight,
we are going to a dinner at a friend’s. When I say “friend,” it usually means
one of her friends. I enjoy myself with this friend, her new husband and her
daughter, but if not for my wife, it just wouldn’t be happening. For the past
ten years, I have been telecommuting to work. The office I work for is in New York
City and Fort Lee, New Jersey. So I don't get to meet a lot of people here in Vermont hence I don’t make a lot local friends here either. I’ve been in Vermont almost two decades and I haven’t made a lot of
friends because of this. Even when I did have a job where I had to go into the
office, I was mostly all work and no play. Such is the life of the introvert.
Most of
my friends, not the ones I get through my conduit wife, are in other states,
mostly Massachusetts and Rhode Island. But even them, of the ones I consider
friends, even they are a bit annoying. Social media is helpful with this. I can
maintain cordial relationships without leaving the confines of my laptop. Even
with this distance, Facebook can sometimes feel like that crowded room when I
have to run away from. Too many personalities to balance, too many expectations
to manage, too many, too many, too many.
Keeping
up with old friends is one of the great things about Facebook. If not for that,
I’d probably leave it. Because I spend much of my day alone on a dirt road in
my home with very few people walking by, having access to the world via
Facebook’s feed is very helpful to me. The other thing I like about social media, is that
it gives you the potential for chatting with strangers. This is more often than not,
not very productive but occasionally you can really connect with people. Because they can’t
see you face, it can get obnoxious fairly quick. You cannot see the face or emotions of the distance people producing blips on your screen. It
is easy to go off the rails and say something you wouldn’t if you were talking
to them in person. But the connection happens sometimes. I’ve connected with strangers
talking about music, politics, literature and games. This doesn't happen a lot in person.
9/22/17
I find
that I have less social anxiety if I have an anchor. This is basically
something to do or something to think about to drive conversions. I recently
joined a book group. I barely have any social anxiety with this group of people
mostly because if I ever run out of things to talk about, I talk about the
book. This is the first book group I’ve ever joined. I don’t know why I haven’t
joined one before now. It was a good idea. I am enjoying it. I think my resistance was that I
wanted to have 100% control of what I read. Like any social engagement, it is a
give and take. I sacrifice this control and once I’ve accepted this, I am okay with it. If they pick someone I
don’t want to read, I just won’t and not go that to that book group session. So
far so good. Other than Mrs. Dalloway, I have liked everything we’ve
read. Going into each group, every six weeks or so, I have some questions I’d
like to ask. This is a great relief to my anxiety.
I have found this adaptive behavior
useful in many social occasions. A couple of years ago, I attended a wedding
(or what I’d like to call a pre-divorce ceremony). To help with my anxiety, I
gave myself a mission to take pictures of everyone I met but to ask them to
make an angry face. Some didn’t comply, oh well, but for those that did, I had
a good time and I have some very funny pictures from that wedding. And yes, they
are already divorced.
As you can see, some people are better than others at looking angry.
Of course, there is always humor. I had dinner with a friend of my wife and her daughter last night and I had little to talk about. But having a young person (mid-20’s) there, aka an audience, gave me a purpose. I inherited a keen sense of humor from my dad and the ability to make people laugh is a handy crutch that I have leaned on often. As the two other adults were talking shop, I was making the young lady laugh.
9/24/17
The weekend is full as usual thanks
to my loving conduit, but I have managed to get some time to myself to do some
writing and other stuff that I enjoy … namely, watching Game of Thrones,
playing Civilization VI, Chess with Friends (the Sicilian Defense), reading High
Fidelity, walking through the woods foraging for firewood and making a
fire.
I was supposed to go kayaking today
with my wife, another different friend and her daughter. Our friend’s daughter
received a kayak for her tenth birthday and wanted to go out with it before the
winter came. Because her mom wanted to go with her and she doesn’t have a
kayak, we were short one. We failed to find another one for me, so I bowed out
so our friend could use my kayak. This is one of the things that people with
social anxiety do. I love kayaking, but if I can avoid it for alone time, I
will. I also really like the people going kayaking but they talk a lot and I’d
rather spend the afternoon with a book or writing than engaging in
conversation.
Yesterday morning, Saturday, we got
up early and headed to breakfast at the 158 Main, one of our favorite breakfast
joints in Jeffersonville. We had to find a parking space in the shade because we
had Woodrow with us and it is unseasonably hot for Fall in Vermont. They were under-staffed
so we got to play two complete games of cribbage before we got any food. We
split the games. We were up early because we were headed to Harvest Festival in
Underhill, an annual event that happens the first weekend of the Fall. It has lots
of booths mostly yard sale type stuff, live music, crafts and food. It is a
good time. This year I bought about 15 CDs for a buck each. It was a good bunch
ranging from Shawn Colvin (2) to Brian Eno (2) to U2, Fugees and Anna Nalick.
In addition, we bought a dog crate for 20 bucks, a few books and a Trivial
Pursuit edition that we didn’t have (the 60’s).
Mostly, we had a great time walking around the crowd of strangers taking in
the good weather and a root beer float. Woodrow grew tired easily, dranks lots
of water and smelled lots of new friends. Crowds are okay for the socially
anxious lout. No reason to feel anxious with strangers. It is only once I know
them that they make me nervous.
I spent the few hours after the
festival importing the CDs into my ITunes and reading and then headed out to do
my weekly volunteer work. I volunteer assisting a group of Bhutanese refugees
take their citizenship tests. These folks have been through hell and spending
quality time with them is a good way for me to check my privilege. Since Trump
got elected I’ve been feeling like I haven’t been doing my part … so I found this to
do. I enjoy it. They struggle with English and many of them confuse words like "colonists" with "Congress" and don’t know the different between Bernie Sanders (our
Senator) and Mike Pence (our V.P.) Among other things, I find this refreshing.
Something I thought to be completely political, ended up being the opposite, as
apolitical as anything I’ve ever done. It is just something good I am doing and
it makes me feel good. It is also patriotic in a way, to help some good people who
have been through shit become productive citizens.
After our 1.5 hour session was
done, I met my wife in Burlington, at Ri Ra’s, one of our favorite Irish bars.
She was having some mules with some friends visiting from Massachusetts. See,
conduit. I had some beer, nachos and burger. Then we headed home to watch the
Cubs lose in the 10th inning via a Travis Shaw two run walk off.
I love my life. I never thought it would be this good. I love my wife, I have good job working from home and I
love my home. Also, my pets make me happy. Running away works. When you run
away, you are also running towards something. In my case, I was running towards
this ... happiness.
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