Update and Bonus Fiction: "Air Hunger"

I've been a little quiet lately, huh? There are a number of reasons, I promise, and though many of those reasons are related to the newest title in the Legend of Zelda series of video games, there are a few more legit reasons, too. The biggest thing standing between me and putting out my desired quantity of writing, both on this blog and in my current LGBT romance novel endeavor, is my quest to become a Certified Financial Planner. I've been cramming for my intro course exam, and unfortunately, I'm worried the test is going to go a little like this:

Here lie Abi's hopes and dreams. (Source)

I'm a weird kid with a bachelor's in psychology, a minor in studio art, and a tendency to become emotionally attached to horses in video games. My primary media are the written word and acrylic paint, so the often abstract and number-based world of finance feels especially foreign to me. Don't get me wrong: I love a good puzzle, and I like the idea of helping people plan for their futures, but I'm studying philosophy in a language I never learned. Plus, I'm 88% sure Kelsey and I will never afford things like a house or children or maybe even lunch tomorrow, so what gives me the right to manage someone else's wealth?

But, before I knock myself down too far into the Pit of Unworthiness, I must remind myself that this is an introductory course. This is dipping my toe into the water and exposing myself to the chill of it. Haha. Exposing myself. AHEM. As I've been told, there always must be a first experience, and so much of financial planning seems beyond me right now, I am picking up on things as they're repeated to me, and it's OK that I still have a long way to go.

Alrighty, there you have it, the personal update, AKA: Why Abi Has 30 Half-Written Entries Saved in Her Drafts That She May Never Get to Complete. 

For the sake of sharing at least some content while I work on bigger things, I thought I'd include a rough piece I wrote a few years ago, after my grandmother died. This is half fiction, gathered from several surreal and casually existential conversations with my dad with a healthy dollop of artistic license. It's a bit grim, and I describe my wonderful father in perhaps an unfairly unflattering way for the sake of the visceral mood of the essay. I definitely put my own words into his mouth as well. Sorry, Dad. Like I said: little fact, little fiction. Lotta drama, to be honest.

Without further ado:

Air Hunger

The glass case in the front of the China Inn restaurant contains a mint-in-box Elvis doll in his white bejeweled suit, a series of McDonald’s toys from around 2007, and a set of Star Trek Pez dispensers. It’s easier to look at these American souvenirs than to look at my dad as he spoons the stringy, salty slime of egg-drop soup into his mouth between sentences.

“We call it air hunger,” he says and washes the soup down with Japanese beer served in a Bud Lite glass. “When she was gasping for air right at the end. She made that gurgle-hiccup sound in her throat for a few minutes, remember? Like uururggh-aah… uurrrrghhh-aah.”

When he tilts his head back to imitate death he reveals an impressive forest of nose hair creeping from his nostrils. I nod to signify that yes, I remember. He slides his hand over his smooth head and the harsh lights reflect on the sheen of grease there.

“The body doesn’t want to die, even if you think you’ve psychologically resigned to death. All this afterlife stuff you may tell yourself over the years doesn’t mean shit when you’re lying there about to die in a stiff hospital bed. I think she saw that. Suddenly, it’s not Jesus and glowing gates in your future. It’s nothing. It’s curtains. The end of your narrative. Not even darkness, just void. There’s no peace there, and however much you may be suffering, it must be horrifying to face that sudden stop to everything you could ever comprehend. People don’t want to end.”

The kung pao chicken arrives and we silently scoop our portions onto our rice. My chopsticks fail to snap completely apart but I pretend not to notice. My dad continues with his speech.

“We evolved to sense something bigger out there, some reason for existing. We’re complex organisms with a hyperactive frontal lobe that constantly reminds us: ‘hey, you’re going to die, and there is nothing that you can do about it.’ And so our brain forms a mysterious, wondrous perception of a world beyond our own that explains what we don’t understand and provides a continuation of ourselves once our meat rots away. Religion. Extremely important to psychological well-being and social cohesion. Divisive too, sure. That would have been an adaptive characteristic for a group of people thousands of years ago. Shared beliefs created camaraderie and distrust of other groups with different beliefs was a trait that could save your family.

"She believed in the Christian afterlife, or heaven and hell. Maybe God exists,” says my dad the Sunday school teacher. “But if an actual god exists, why would he need to give a reward to 'good’ people? Or punish 'not good’ people? For eternity? After our tiny blip of existence? That makes no sense. Being good for the sake of an eternal reward is cheap, fake. We must be good for the sake of being good and contributing to the health and happiness of other humans. If you know you’ve done that while on your deathbed, that must be heaven.”

The vegetables are savory but a little tough. A few dark, dry pods are strewn through the meal and when I bite into them they burst with a fiery, flavorless burn on my tongue. My dad collects a few of them in one bite, which he chews languidly as if he were numb to their shock. I can’t think of anything to contribute to the conversation. Much of Christianity has labeled me as inferior because of my gender and damned because of my sexuality. It’s a relief to hear my dad discount that belief system. It means I’m spared and that those rules are as stupid as I always hoped they were. But for some reason I feel hollow.

“Now Hell,” says dad gravely as the fortune cookies and check are placed before him by a white woman in athletic shorts, “I know that exists too. Hell is when you’re lying in the certainty of death and you realize you’ve failed completely at the human mission. You’ve done nothing of significance to anyone. You are ending forever and you’ve left no act of kindness, no great thoughts, and no legacy behind. You’ve made no impact in all your years. As you die, you remember the stories you didn’t tell, the helpful impulses you ignored, all the days you spent doing nothing. You amount to nothing. You are a carcass still hungry for a little oxygen, but what does it matter? You are void. And that is Hell.”

My dad reads his fortune to himself as he chews the cookie. He then tucks the paper into his breast pocket and pulls out his wallet to pay. There is no fortune in my crushed shell. 

Imaginary Therapist

I'm really into this thing where I shrink myself. No, not in the fetishy way. Yes, there is a fetishy way.

No, the kind of shrinking I'm into is the kind in which I go to great lengths to imagine an in-depth conversation with a therapist that I don't actually have. 

There are a few good reasons to employ an imaginary therapist:

1. They are very cost-effective

2. I'm out of good reasons

A photo of my imaginary therapist between clients

OK, so it's not that great of a coping method, but damn if it ain't affordable. I find myself visiting my imaginary therapist at least once a day, and I don't even have to consult my health insurer about it. A number of things can trigger a visit. Sometimes, I go to them (my imaginary therapist is non-binary, of course) to vent about other real people. These sessions are very "woe is me," and I like to think I.T. (you know, Imaginary Therapist) reassures me that yes, those real people are placing a lot of pressure on me, and no, not everything is my responsibility.

Other times, I swing by I.T.'s office because I've noticed myself engaging in some neuro-atypical behaviors or thought patterns. I've mentioned these to you before, actually, so I suppose you are in league with I.T. to some extent as well. Here's how a typical session like that plays out:

Me: Hi, I.T. I hope that you don't mind that I'm consulting you in the shower, while I shave my legs for the first time in three weeks.

I.T.: Actually, I'm not-

Me: So anyway, here's the thing. The other day, I was supposed to go to this networking event, right? And yeah, nobody really likes networking events, but I'd been to this particular event several times in the past, and they aren't that bad. I even have a little fun at them. Anyway. I'm running late to the event, right? I used to be punctual. Neurotically punctual. Do you think I've lost the energy to be on time? Is that depression? Or am I late these days because I married someone who is allergic to being on time? Was that mean? 

I.T.: I don't-

Me: OK, so I'm late, but it's because I was cleaning up dog poop. Dog diarrhea, actually. With some mucus and blood in it, which was pretty alarming. Is my dog dying? Do you think it's my fault? Am I stressing my puppies out? Oh my gawd, what are my kids going to be like? Not that I'll ever afford them. Also, it's probably inhumane to pass on my genes to a new generation. The planet is dying, after all, and I want to pop some children into that world with DNA that will almost guarantee that they'll be mentally ill, near-sighted, and at least some variation of queer? Not that it's wrong to be queer, or mentally ill, or near-sighted, for that matter. I mean, HELLO. But it's hard, you know? 

I.T.: ?

Me: Back to the poop, which the dog is now on meds for, so it's fine. Anyway, I was sick too, so I puked on the poop as I cleaned it up. Quelle horreur! Then I had to clean feces out of the dog's fur. Yippee. Maybe I'll make a Facebook post about that. Historically, my friends have enjoyed posts that feature my dogs and their bowel movements. Is it bad that I get a rush when people like my stuff and say that I'm funny? Am I a narcissist? Should I be making more posts about how our government is imploding and everyone who isn't a rich, straight, white, cis-gender, Christian man has a guillotine hanging over their necks?

I.T.: I think you nicked your toe...

Me: Yeah, I have Hobbit-level hairy toes. I think it's the PCOS. But I'm not sure I really have PCOS, except that I haven't been... uh, you know... visited by Mother Nature since Christmas. I have this joke with my wife that my body just keeps re-wallpapering my uterus in this manic, child-hungry desperation and is refusing to throw anything out. Anyway, as I was saying, dog poop, human puke, running late. But I did make it to the event, even though I had to park a block away and walk to it through the rain. I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I have prosopagnosia. Face-blindness. I have an impaired ability to recognize and remember faces, even faces within my own family sometimes.

I.T.: You mention it frequently.

Me: It makes networking hard. But, hallelujah, there were name tags at the event. The meeting place was in this tiny boutique, and about three bajillion people were crammed inside, so I was fighting like a salmon during mating season to make it upstream to the name tags. All the while, I keep thinking about how I need to be here because I missed a couple days of work because of the dogs and my own health and our flooded basement because it's been raining for the past eternity. I finally get up there, and this guy, let's call him "Kevin," steps in front of me. I don't know a Kevin, but it's on his name tag. Kevin just eyeballs me. Just stares right into my garbage-fire soul. So I introduce myself, but I'm kind of thrown, and I know I look like I'm a child, not somebody who belongs at this networking event. He still doesn't speak. I start to panic. I can feel the hot, embarrassed tears in my eyes. And I straight up run away. I run away! What adult businesswoman does that?

I.T.: I-

Me: My immediate thought is social anxiety, right? But I know some of these people, and I like a lot of them! I like being around people. I'm a performer, an extrovert. Well, more of an ambivert. Sometimes being around people is draining, but sometimes being alone is, too. People or no people, I'm just drained. Is that mental illness or physical illness? Maybe I'm making all of this up.

I.T.: Maybe you should-

Me: Point is, I don't know that it was social anxiety. Probably more of a guilt complex thing. 95% of my personality is shame-based. Sometimes I wonder if all of my shame is really just a method of garnering sympathy and attention. Ick, that's kind of sad, huh? I really don't like to think about that. That's giving me some cognitive dissonance. Why did you bring that up?

I.T.: But I never-

Me: Oooh, brrrr! There goes the hot water. I'd better wrap this up. Thanks, I.T. See you in about 10 minutes when I'm nervously picking at all the acne on my jawline!

My poor therapist never really gets more than a word or two in edgewise. That's a shortcoming of the system. It's free, sure, but it's really easy to overpower someone who isn't actually there. It's also easy to get them to agree with you, and they rarely have an opinion that truly differs from yours. 

Earlier this week, a coworker and I were talking about jury duty. I said that I'd been summoned three times in the past two years, but had only shown up for the first one, which got me out of the subsequent ones. She asked if I was selected, and I told her that I wasn't, and made a joke that it was probably because I straight up wrote this in the section for reasons I shouldn't be chosen: "I considered jumping off of a building a week ago, and may consider it again during the course of the trial."

My coworker didn't find the joke as funny as I did. She asked if I had a therapist. I told her that I didn't, that it seemed like a hassle, and a potentially costly one at that. I laughed it off and assured her that I'm fine now. You know, fine enough to get by. 

But maybe it is something I should consider someday. It can't hurt to shop for a therapist. The worst that can happen is that I'll not find anyone covered by my insurance, or that they'll be too expensive even with my health plan. 

I've heard several people say that everyone could benefit from a therapist, from an unbiased outsider's voice and ear. I agree with that. Hey, I majored in psychology, didn't I? So it's odd that I'm such a stick in the mud when it comes to considering therapy for myself.

You know what? I think I'll look into it. If not for my own sake, then for I.T.'s. The poor soul is overdue for a vacation.

Psalm of the Kitchen

Every meal is a prayer. I've learned the meditation of a pot of water not yet boiling. I frame the altar of my stove with talismans of spice and oil. The touch of the steam is like the touch of a spirit, warm but fleeting, anointing my palm with moisture that evaporates as I pull away.

The concept of the kitchen as a cathedral is not a new one. We've sensed the spirituality inherent to eating and preparing to eat since our ancestors first stood on two legs and wandered the tall grass, gathering shared resources with evolutionarily repurposed arms. Food unites. Food restores. We are all members of its congregation.

It's as a congregation that my family stands around me in our most ancient sanctuary. I sizzle onions and garlic in a dark pan, and we call out songs to play, a tap away on our phones. The water shushes over plates in the sink as we wash them, and they clink and scrape together, and it's music, too. My sister chops vegetables, shuck, shuck on the cutting board. My love reads instructions to me from that holy tome, the cookbook, and the dogs click claws across the tile. We exist in this moment more than we've existed anytime else in the day. Right now, we are participating in the universe.

Most sacred to me are the times I worship alone. Some of those days, I hear my family in the next room, their voices indistinct and tumbling over each other, lifting in laughter, quieting, continuing. I don't need to know their words. I am satisfied knowing their presence.

Some days, the next room is silent and empty, and I cherish that as well. I whisper invented hymns as the burner tick tick ticks. I rub salt between my fingertips. There is a powdery smell to pasta when it hits the bubbling water, even when it's the cheap macaroni I buy in bulk because I'm afraid of the day that my family will be hungry and our cupboards will be empty. 

But it's not this day. Today, I can fold stringy, melting cheddar into the noodles and add a dash of cayenne, just because I can, just because it's there. Though the meal is cheap, it will taste like a miracle, because my loves will wake up to hot food from their cold sleep.

I pray that I can always do this. I pray that I can protect us with a stirring spoon. I pray that I will always hear voices in the other room. 

We cup warm bowls in our hands and bow our heads. 

The truest god I know dwells in this communion.

Weirdest Kid on the Block

I updated the design of my What the Douglas emails this week and contemplated changing the preheader line, which is something like, "News and updates from the weirdest kid on the block." But I didn't consider it for long, because on a weirdness scale of dry, unbuttered toast to a sculpture of Weird Al made entirely of butter and toast, I'm a solid "high-kneeing it down the street to the tune of Take On Me."

A young Abi G. Douglas ritually sacrificing a pumpkin.

OK, so maybe that weirdness scale is imperfect, because as weird as a breakfast-food depiction of a quirky celebrity is, it's definitely not the weirdest thing out there. The problem with a weirdness scale is that "weird" is subjective and difficult to define. I mean, to the ancient Scots, it used to refer to fate and destiny. How weird is that?

Despite the trouble with defining weirdness, everyone knows what and who is weird.

Except if you're the weird one.

I remember the moment in which I realized people considered me strange. It was toward the end of middle school, and a friend described me as "awkward." She meant it to be endearing, but it also clicked the world into a new perspective for me. Suddenly, it dawned on me that the behavior I considered "normal" for myself was not quite "normal" for everyone else. 

Picture this: The "twist revelation" theme from the Saw movies is playing as the camera zooms in on middle school Abi's face, and a montage of memories flashes by. Little Abi pretending to be a red blood cell in the elementary school hallway. Abi leashing an imaginary, floating elephant to her desk during Social Studies, unaware that her method of practicing tying a bowline would be seen as peculiar. Abi carrying a stuffed animal with her to classes, well past the age that toys are appropriate in the classroom, until a teacher has to stop her because it is just so awfully cringe-worthy. Abi drawing comics starring her friends as animals because she has trouble telling human faces apart and understanding her place in the friend group. Abi talking to her imaginary friends at age 13. Abi licking another girl in the shower and being laughed at, oblivious until now that she'd been the butt of a joke, of so many jokes.

The camera pulls back, and Abi murmurs, "Holy sauerkraut, I was weird all along."

It was both a funny and traumatizing experience for me. The scales had fallen from my eyes and I saw for the first time just how weird and embarrassing and "other" I was. I was so ashamed. I wanted to cry, but would that be "awkward"? I wanted to defend myself, because after all this time thinking I belonged, I now had a mountain of evidence proving that I didn't, and it had been right under my nose all this time. How could I not have known? 

That was a turning point. My life became piloted by shame and the looming question: "Am I being weird right now?" I questioned everything I said, everything I did, but I still failed to prevent the inevitable outbreaks of strangeness. My impulse to be loud and imaginative and off-the-wall was constantly at war with the new voice in my head that told me I was an embarrassment and a burden and an outsider (and not even the cool, edgy kind of outsider, either).

My entire high school experience was consumed by that war. I felt so separated (thanks largely to my own efforts to separate myself) that I missed out on much of what it was to be a high school student, which served to isolate me even more. It wasn't just that I wasn't comfortable in my skin... All those lessons of "It's what's on the inside that counts" reinforced my fear that who I was, deep beneath the skin, was irreparably wrong. I spiraled in on myself. It was the weirdest kind of narcissism.

I can't remember much of high school. What I can remember is so stained with shame that I rarely care to revisit it. Well, except for when I'm lying awake at night, replaying some bizarre interaction from a decade ago and kicking myself for mistakes that nobody else even remembers.

 By college, I was exhausted from the constant battle with myself. So I let the weird run wild, more or less resigned to living the rest of my life as a punchline or a blight. But then college did what it so often does and connected me to other weirdos who didn't remember the many years I spent insisting that I was a cat named Henry or claiming (and truly believing) that there were clumps of "alien DNA" under the skin of my forearm. 

Two magical things happened:

1. Other people embraced and celebrated my weirdness.
2. I embraced and celebrated my weirdness.

I've been living the authentic weird life ever since.

It occurs to me that, with the substitution of certain memories and words, this could double as my coming out story. The realization came to me at about the same time, and I finally embraced THE GAY in my soul right around when I embraced THE WEIRD. I guess the "licking a girl in the shower" memory could work for both stories...

ANYWAY. I'm still self-conscious and prone to shame and toxic introspection, but I'm also proud of my weird ways. Being weird helps me make people laugh, and spurs me to imagine adventures that I can share through my writing, and allows me to see the world in ways that are unique to me. 

So, you should feel free to be weird, too. Because everyone falls somewhere on that weird scale. Share the odd thoughts in your head. Wear those funky clothes. Don't be afraid of being awkward or embarrassing. I promise there are people out there who love your brand of bizarre. 

I'm one of those people.

Let's get weird.

Start weird, stay weird. Maybe even get weirder. 

Mom Friend

You know what I love? Found families. Found families are my JAM. There's something amazing about growing up and developing a new family unit with which to navigate the stormy sea of adulthood. 

Also, found family members are obligated to laugh at the dumb crap I post.

I'm lucky enough to have a great found family AND a great blood family. But today, I'm focusing on the dynamics of my found family. Sorry, blood fam. 

I read somewhere (here, actually) that millennials don't feel like adults until age 29 or later, largely because the key "grown up" milestones (like financial independence, owning a house, having kids) are less accessible in today's economy than they were in our parents' economy. I often feel like a little kid playing dress-up (in old hand-me-down clothes from my mother because I can't afford new clothes) when I'm sitting at my desk at work. Like I said in a previous post, it all feels like a desperate game of pretend. 

Which is why found families are especially important to many people in my generation. It's reassuring to have a group of people on your side to play pretend with, to fill in for the guidance and protection of the folks who raised you. 

Particularly blessed within a found family is the Mom Friend. We've all either had one or been one, regardless of generation. Typically, it's the friend who sends you those, "Did you get home safe?" texts, or excels at herding and caring for drunk friends, or dispenses warm advice (even when you don't want to hear it). 

In my various friend circles, I know of a few such pseudo-moms. And I have friends who have now become actual moms (holy wowza!). They are pillars of strength, beacons of hope, and carriers of Tylenol. These are the true Mom Friends.

And then there's me.

Usually, I'm the Whiskey Cousin of the friend group. The one that's reeeaaal heckin' strange, occasionally funny in a living cartoon character kind of way, and should not be trusted with adult responsibilities (or sharp objects). 

But found families need some kind of parental unit to maintain order, and as they say in Jurassic Park: "Life, uh, finds a way."

I have falsely ascended to Mom Friend status within my household. Like Trump in the White House, I have no business being there, I'm woefully ill-prepared, and my actions could easily lead to utter disaster.

Why did this happen?

• I'm the breadwinner of the family, kinda. I have a stable job (achieved largely through good luck, good timing, and good connections) with a predictable flow of income. I have no debts to pay (once again, through no merit of my own and purely through the generosity, forethought, and fortunate circumstances of my birth family). Because of this, it makes sense to have most of the household bills under my name. I'm in charge of a lot of the budget (and in turn, the meal plans), which grants a certain authority and responsibility to me.
• I'm neurotic. I worry about absolutely everything, and I worry about the fact that I worry about everything. So I fret over money, my friends' well-being, the diversity of food we're eating, having plenty of toilet paper on hand at all times, etc.
• I'm paranoid that things won't get done if I don't do them, whether or not that's true.
• I'm the oldest member of the household, and also the only one to be the eldest sibling.
• I compulsively give out advice, regardless of how much I actually know about a topic.
• It's my fault that we're all living together, making me the inadvertent glue of our quirky family.

I tend to be the one making decisions and delegating tasks to Kelsey and Cade. I'm usually in charge of meals, or at least am the one that is asked the mom-est of all questions: "When's dinner?" I'm the one who gets up in the middle of the night if the puppies cry (and also the one who almost always takes them out in the morning, regardless of our collective work schedules). I do most of the grocery runs, or when we all go together, I'm the one slapping Kelsey's wrist for sneaking Fruity Pebbles into the cart and getting unnecessarily flustered.

I take on a lot of Mom Friend responsibilities in keeping the house together, but I'm not a good Mom Friend. I'm the equivalent of the mom that had kids too early, is prone to emotional breakdowns, and gets wine-drunk on the back porch and tells her kids way too much about her sex life.

Fortunately, I'm not alone.

Actual footage of me, Cade, and Kelsey getting crunked in the kitchen (Source)

I may have Mom Friend tendencies, but so do Kelsey and Cade.

Cade is absurdly thoughtful and gave us Christmas gifts so perfect that Santa would feel sub-par as a gift-giver next to her. She makes tea to comfort us, offers to help in any way she can, and helps keep the house from being a cluttery disaster hole. 

Kelsey has repaired broken doors, torn porch screens, missing tiles, and more. Does that make her a Dad Friend? I mean, between that, the beer, baseball hats, and the terrible jokes... But she also introduces delicious recipes to us, decorates for the holidays, and often greets me with a bourbon cocktail when I come home from work (and if that's not right out of a 1950s Home Economics book, I don't know what is). 

We're a bunch of surrogate moms to each other, and I think that's a good way to be. We learned lessons of love from our parents, and it's nice to pass those on to each other, using our various abilities to solve the diverse challenges of growing up in the 21st century. 

Perhaps we're not top-shelf Mom Friends, but I think we make a good family. And really, everyone could stand to mother each other a little more.