If You Belonged Here

You Can't Buy a Gun When You're Crying

I just heard this song by Holly Golightly & the Brokeoffs, and while I happen to really like it, I'm not sure I completely agree with the premise. Why can't one purchase a gun while crying? Is it against a state law? Is it a faux pas?

Because I think I, technically, could buy a gun while crying.

Anyway, I really like this album, which has songs like Devil Do (as in, ain't nobody gonna love you like the Devil do) and Jesus Don't Love Me Anymore (it don't matter what you get me at the liquor store, Jesus don't love me anymore). This woman has a voice like my darling Patsy Cline but a sense of irony and humor like Quentin Tarantino.

It's not everyday listening music, but then again, it depends on the day.

"You could dump me in a river, clean my sin but you might as well dump me in a bucket of gin" and "the Lord don't like it but the Devil don't mind."

These lyrics are speaking directly my inner (aspiring) alcholic. And, lo, do I have alcoholism envy lately. Again. Or still. It's hard to tell. Is it as quiet and peaceful as I think it is when one is staring into an open bottle of beer? I like to think that if I just put my mind to it, I could gaze into a glass of whiskey by candlelight for hours, foresaking all laundry and other worldly obligations. The trouble is, I wouldn't want to drink it. 

And that's where I fail as an aspiring alcholic. 

I've been thinking a lot about vice lately. Mostly the vices I don't have, which is most of them. Like smoking. I really hate the smell of cigarette smoke, have never smoked--not even a puff--but I was watching the ladies light up in Mad Men and it looked so pretty. Sexy pretty, not cute pretty. And then there's the relaxed look the people get, when just after they've lit that cigarette with shaking hands and blinked back the tears, they inhale, hold the smoke in their lungs, and then exhale. All the tension just seems to drain out of them.

I wonder if I missed out on something--besides lung cancer and nicotine fingers and premature aging and smelling like an ashtray--by not smoking.

I also refrain from adultery. Not even a facebook flirtation. It's good for the marriage but so boring. I was talking to a friend the other day about weight and dieting and motivation and I realized that people who cheat on their spouses are probably, as a group, thinner and more fit than those that don't. I have not a scrap of data to back this up, but I bet it's true. Getting nekkid is motivating. I haven't been nekkid in about a decade. Naked, sure. But nekkid? No. Not even a little bit.

Sigh.

I was listening to that John Cougar Mellencamp song, Jack & Diane, at the grocery store and was struck by the lyric "life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone." I'm not thrilled to be alive. I'm enjoying it, don't get me wrong. But I'm not thrilled. It's been some time since I've had butterflies in my stomach or that rollercoaster feeling of excitement. Of course, I don't get heartbroken or blindsided anymore either.

But still, the thrill is gone.

For example, we have a tradition called the Mojo Dance Party. The Dol hosts it. I love it because it is wicked fun. Only not wicked in the devilish sense, but wicked in the very sense. When Mr. Poppins asks me, the following morning, how the party was, I say it was great. When he asks what happened, I say "we danced and ate appetizers and drank some alcohol. We had fun." I don't have much more to say beyond that because we are all so damn responsible, even when intoxicated. Nobody throws up. Nobody cries. Nobody hooks up and starts making out. Nobody loses a friend and starts freaking out demanding "where's Jennifer? You have to help me find Jennifer!" And nobody gets into one of those awkward under-dressed and over-served girl arguments that end in streaky mascara and sobs.

I look forward to the Mojo Dance Party but I don't have that heightened sense of "anything might happen" that I used to get before, say, a high school dance. Why? Because the only thing that is going to happen is dancing and, possibly, a little impromtu sing-a-long with Meatloaf.

Do you love me forever? Right, now I'm praying for the end of time.

Not really. I'm enjoying myself. I like my life. There are no surprises. Fantastic. Everyone knows I hate surprises anyway. But they sure do make for interesting stories.

I don't think I'd ever buy a gun while I was crying but I couldn't even tell you if that was an ethical choice or not. It might just be that it's not going to come up.

 

Polly Refuses to Participate

The thing about drama, really unnecessary drama, is that the people who perpetuate it are never at fault. The fault always belongs to the opposite party. The party that is making the dramatic person be dramatic.

Or so the story goes.

My tolerance for drama is low. Yet I have managed to inspire it in a few people over the years. Usually just once. Because that's my meltdown limit. Not meltdown as in tantrum, but meltdown as in melt away like a ninja. One minute I'm there, the next I'm gone and the person who was perpetuating the drama is dead. At least to me.

I will always consider an accusation, an assertion, or really any claim--reasonable or otherwise--that I am acting without integrity, logic, or kindness. I will consider it but I will not automatically be cowed by it. I weigh the evidence. I have blind spots, especially when it comes to other people's emotions. I do not always remember to take feelings into account, not even my own feelings.

For example, my personal philosophy is that I refuse to feel guilt over thoughts and feelings. I feel what I feel. It's a body sensation, like a cramp or a tickle or an itch, that passes over me without permission. But regardless of my feelings, I hold myself accountable for my actions. Voluntary actions. Well, sometimes involuntary ones like sneezes, too. But mostly voluntary.

I also hold other people accountable for theirs. Regardless of how they feel. Regardless of whether or not they think the way they feel is somehow my fault. Because, even assuming their feelings are my fault, their actions are not. I expect integrity from others as well as myself.

Not every person seems to be capable of integrity. And yet, still I expect it. Because really, I refuse to live my life surrounded by any other kind of people.

So when I cut off all ties with my cousin, Queen An, let's call her, I really cut off all ties. It's over. I don't care if she gets medicated, lobotomized, or sees the light. It's over. Because the best predictor of what people will do is what they have already done. And she's done plenty. With all the people who haven't proved they lack reason, accountability--integrity--who live in my zipcode, let alone on the planet, I see no reason to throw good after bad with a known trouble maker.

On the other hand, when I have a disagreement or misunderstanding with someone who I know to have integrity, I will go to any length to reconcile, to learn from the situation, to strengthen the relationship. It's not that I'm not willing to work at being a good friend. It's that I'm not a masochist.

I have been told that I am selfish. Usually by people who want something from me that I am not willing to give, as opposed to people I am asking something of. I don't really get it. It's a blind spot for me. How can I be selfish just for refusing to give what's mine? I'm not taking anything from anyone and I'm not hoarding. I'm not being greedy, per se. I'm just refusing to try to fill someone else's emotional void. And usually that someone else has what I consider to be an very weak, if not non-existent, claim on me.

If the antonym of selfish is selfless, then I guess it's possible I am selfish. I prefer to think of it as self-respecting. Because in all things moderation, right. I like to think that there's a middle ground. A place of balance. Where neither party in a relationship has to completely subjugate their needs to the other person. Especially when "relationship" is a loose euphemism for passing acquaintance. 

In this case, I'm not speaking of Queen An. I'm speaking of a biological half-sibling I have never met from a biological parent who I have almost no memory of, whose name isn't even listed on my birth certificate. I can't bring myself to feel responsible for this biological half-sibling's warm fuzzy vision of what we should be to each other. I can't bring myself to fall into the role of "big sister of her dreams." I can't begin to explain to her that I feel no responsibility to have a relationship with our biological father and that by not doing so, I'm not purposefully punishing him, just making a practical choice.

I don't feel I owe her anything. I don't feel I owe him anything. I don't think shared DNA mandates intimacy. I choose to build relationships with emotionally stable, reliable people who demonstrate personal integrity. I choose not to build relationships with people who have a history of instabiliy, unreliability, and a lack of integrity. It's that simple. I don't care how much the other person feels like I owe them.

I am loyal, commited, and willing to sacrifice. I will invest time, effort, and emotion into relationships that are worthwhile. I will give without keeping points. Help without question. Love with my whole tiny heart. But I will not be an emotional masochist.

I value mutual respect, dignity, and reciprocity. Not perfect reciprocity, but the shared intention of reciprocity. I am very intentional in my relationships.

Perhaps it is a matter of understanding motives, but I have never met an INTJ whom I considered selfish. Nor one whom I considered selfless. All of the INTJs I know, male and female, act with integrity. They are reliable, considerate, and loyal. When I found myself in personal crisis, just after I had driven across the country and signed a lease with a lying, cheating, burden of a man, it was two INTJs who flew out almost immediately to be by my side. Because they knew that I needed them. I really needed them. I had done everything that I could for myself but I was still a wreck, so they came.

I didn't have to ask. They just came.

Diosa was one of those INTJs, and in a rare, possibly unprecedented and unrepeated, burst of overt temper, she actually slapped that lying, cheating, burden of a man across the face. She slapped him. INTJs don't usually go in for that sort of thing, but there comes a point. At that point, we are the friend most likely to bring a shovel and well-thought-out plan for disposing of the body.

Not really. But maybe really. You never know.

I don't have games in my relationships. I think reason and drama are at odds. I want people to make sense--at least most of the time--and when they don't, I want them to go away. Or to at least not try to follow me when I go away. 

Maybe that would be asking to much of some. But I'm not asking. I don't need anyone's permission.

 

Polly Ignores the Obviously

If this blog were a coffee table, I'd be able to write my name in the dust. Perhaps even plant petunias. It's been that long. We haven't had a new post since last June. Early June at that.

Traffic is about the same.

People keep finding their way here. You'll notice the comments pile up from the INTJ females and their fans over on the Lonely Non-Girl post--the only old post that still accepts comments at this point because I've put the "closed" sign up on the rest of the party. It's self preservation. I've got way to few brain cells left to be taxing any of them on old business.

That and the spam is annoying.

Really annoying. Spam has totally devolved into incoherent text and number strings. There aren't even any salacious references to naughty girls and penis implants anymore. Just huge, random text paragraphs. I can't even be disgusted or indignant. It's complete spam nihilism.

Besides, imagine if I let all those people who come here looking for free kokology tests answer the questions. Just picture it. Random mail that says"#4" or "I have to go with love story" showing up in my inbox every day or so. That'd start to feel like a gaslighting conspiracy pretty quick. 

Those kokology diehards--mostly INTJs, I'm sure--are the main driving force behind the few thousand or so hits a month this blog still garners while I'm idling away the time posting odes to my glass of wine on facebook.

Which reminds me of the other reason I tapered off on the posting: my blog-stalking cousin is a total sociopath. Or at the very least a complete wingnut. (If you're reading this, coz, you can just skip commenting because you are dead to me). She went all religious troll on the team and accused us of teaching toddlers to freebase and force choke each other using the evil powers of Earth Day.

She even called my mom to tell on me. Not that I cared, because I was right and I hadn't done anything wrong. But it was unnecessarily inconvenient.

I do hate to be unnecessarily inconvenienced. I mean, sometimes inconvenience is truly unavoidable and I just put on my big girl pants and deal with it. But when it's avoidable? I do not tolerate that well.

Since the posts were puttering along on fumes anyway--becoming an inconvenience themselves--I was happy to let the writing stall out for a while. Also, I'm mostly a responsible grownup who does NOT teach toddlers to freebase so I don't have a lot of new and interesting material to use as fodder, outside of the hilarious stuff Secret Lulu says and, again, I save snippets for facebook.

(An aside: do you ever worry that your webcam is somehow inadvertantly posting you to the neighbors' closed circuit wireless security system while you type away, wearing nothing but a mismatched and failing bra and bloomer set? Because I worry about that. So much that I might just have to buy new underwear. Or unplug the camera. One of those.)

Forget it.

But since I originally started this blog as a solo project to vent my INTJ-MBTI obsession, I keep the Lonely Non-Girl post open to comments. I don't know if it's fair or not, or if it makes sense to everyone else. But at the end of the day, this blog is not a democracy. It's a little island of "My Way."

That was an INTJ joke. It's not very funny, but it gets to the point.

In any case, for those who are coming by to comment on Lonely Non-Girl, well, I'm not always the timeliest at replying to your comments, but I still read them, and I hear you. More than that, I get what you're saying.

In the meantime, I've got some new obsessions that I'm perseverating on. The first is the aforementioned sociopathy. The second it the cyclical nature of generational personality. I'll probably post about them soon. Ish.

Happy New Year.