oba and oya have it out

I've never talked about Oba, not in public anyway.  More, I whisper about her.  Whisper to her.  Whisper around her. Anything might offend. I try not to think about her too much.  Living with her can be pure hell.  But only sometimes.  Here's the problem:  her self-defeatism, if that is a word.

We had a conversation yesterday, 'conversation' being the polite word for it. She fucking cried, pouted, complained, and blamed (everybody else). Again.

"I'm all alone," she wailed, like I'm not right there next to her, as usual.

She then went on—you know the drill—nobody's helping her. Nobody's supporting her. Where's hers? I've heard this all before. Nobody's giving her a break, how 'bout a grant maybe, a really good job where you don't have to work.  How 'bout free rent? Or no rent at all. How 'bout sex? Where's mine?

She cut off her ear, they say, to feed it to Chango.

You know, I just don't have much sympathy.

Oba could use a really good therapist, as far as I'm concerned.

She counters saying I don't understand her. Don't understand her pain. Her sense of humor. Her struggles. Her ambitions.  How-hard-it-all-is for her in this world.  She's absolutely right. She struggles like mad, and everything's a struggle. 'The world' just isn't taking care of her, and she's furious about that.

She's got to do it herself, and that just pisses her off. And she's sick of people telling her to pull herself up by the bootstraps and do it the fuck herself.

She raises her voice. She yells when she's not being just plain morose. She cut off her ear and fed it to Chango. (I mean, it didn't work too well for van Gogh either as a coping mechanism, but hell, at least he didn't stop painting).

Do you think that kind of behavior makes her more attractive?  Do you think Chango was moved?

I'm not much of a supporter of woe-is-me strategies. I grew up hearing them, and I must say all it did was harden my soul.  Make me want to never ever ask anyone for anything. Not long for anyone. And certainly not pine for them. I have no sense of 'deserving' or 'undeserving'. No sense of entitlement at all.

Expect nothing.
Be ready for anything.
Be prepared.
Maybe I'm a Boy Scout at heart.

It's not like Oba needs to pick up a sword to make her point. Granted, that's not her way.  Just pick herself up. Dust herself off. Hold her head high. And get goddamn to work.

See what she's done?  She's got me the fuck swearing.

Maybe I've got way too much of Weber's Protestant Ethic in me and not enough of Mauss's prestations.  Or maybe I'm too selective in my sense of reciprocal obligations. Maybe I'm just a bitch with a sword. Maybe I'm supposed to fix her tight little universe for her. Find her a Chango and hand it to her on an ebony platter. Cut off my own ears and feed them to her so she can see I'm listening?

A good therapist is what she needs.
Maybe I should give her mine.

another awful day in berkeley: the happiness conundrum

Another awful day in Berkeley — with one exception.  Brunch with a friend.  One of those friends that you really talk to.  One of those friends who both listens and talks. We were talking about 'happiness.'  Did you see that?  I just put 'happiness' in quotes.  There. Now I've done it twice.  It was either going to be quotation marks, or it was going to be italics. I'm not sure which is worse.

Italicized happiness I think implies only emphasis intended.

'Happiness' in quotes means I think it's a crock.

That's what we were talking about.  Not happiness as a crock, but that I can't just let it be.

The problem at hand being that I'm happy.  Which is making me unhappy.  The problem isn't the happiness itself. It's a sustainability issue.  I'm actually happier with the pursuit of happiness — not the happiness itself.

My friend said those terrible words:

just enjoy it

And all I could think of was, well, you just don't understand.

Jewish here.

Can I blame that?  No probably not.  I do have a Jewish friend who's downright happy most of the time. She's got this fabulous authentic smile, a great life, she's smart, talented, bakes cakes. Belly dancer.  She's fun.  She's happy.

I think she's an exception to the rule.

What I was telling my friend is that through all the death and dying traumas of the last two years, I've just plain coped magnificently (or at least fairly well) under pressure (and with help) — and just taken one problem after another and been competent, efficient, and helpful.  I haven't fallen.  Haven't resorted to drinking. Haven't called a therapist (the Jewish equivalent to drinking).

But a month or two of happiness? Surely time for psychotherapy.

He didn't understand this at all.

just enjoy it

Unclear on the concept.  It's the sustainability thing that gets me.

The optimist expects more of the same. More happiness. And why not? If we can do it now, we can do it later.  If we're careful. If we pay attention. Right?

The pessimist (that would be me) expects nothing at all. And that nothing at all leads to great joy at the littlest thing — since it was so unexpected.  To expect happiness — well, first of all it's rude. Presumptuous. We need low expectations to be (accidentally) happy. We need happiness to sneak up on us and scare the shit out of us.

I think pessimist happiness is a happier sort of happy. If that makes any sense.  Because we're in such shock.

But tell us to expect more of the same?  Too much pressure.  Tell us to just enjoy it?  Not dissect it. Not analyze it. Actually, that's part of the problem.  It's so much easier to write about misery than happiness.  I mean, happiness.  What's there to say?

I think that's the problem: all the awful little stories that I love to write — they've all just flown my head.  I sit down to write, and — too happy to write.  Why would I want to sit down and write some dreary tale, when I'm too blissed out even to sit down.

Happiness.  It's ruining my writing.  Any more of this, and I'll be a complete illiterate blubbering in the corner spewing nothing more than 'vomit factor' dribble.  Definition of 'vomit factor' in case you missed it: the gooeyness that people in love spew out in public that nobody wants to be around.  It's just too sappy.  And that's where we've been heading: happy sappy brainless spew.

just enjoy it?

My brain is melting.

So. It was good, then, I suppose, that I had a really shitty day in Berkeley today.  Back at the Republic of Berkeley Parking Division. Turned out they returned all my applications and checks for Caregiver Parking Permits.  This time, I got parking right in front of the building.  Right at the door!  Paid my parking meter up full, expecting another long wait, but this time I was going to get-something-accomplished.

They were closed, of course. Thus the good parking spot.  Closed on Fridays.  I do believe the city just can't pay workers for more than four days work per week.  Every office except one is closed on Fridays. Monday's a holiday. Come back no sooner than Tuesday. I had a nice long chat with the doorman, however, about the woes of city employees in the Republic of Berkeley.

That's how the bad day started. And it went downhill from there.  I've actually promised myself that I wouldn't write about it. Wouldn't explain it. But without that, it just eats away my insides.  More to the point, is that I handled 'it' (the awfulness) with grace and even humor.  I did the troubleshooting. Ran interference. Apologized for the insulting rudeness of others.  Took-care-of-business...

I'm so good at it.  Gimme a good shitty day, and I can turn it around and save it.

What do you get to do with happiness?  I mean, really.  What are you supposed to do about it?

Oh. Right.

just enjoy it

Fine.

Fine.  I'll do that.  But my writing's going clear to hell.

the shekhina and the shikse goddess

The shekhina and the shikse goddess walk into a bar...

I know. It's not funny. And it didn't happen that way, anyway. It's so much easier to think of the two of them separately. As if they just don't belong inhabiting the same paradigm. But there they are, deep in conversation. It doesn't really matter how or where they met.

The shekhina. She's remote. Unattainable. Melancholic. Removed. Horrified at what we've done to the place. Her world, her dominion. The dominion of malkhut. With the shekhina, what you see is not what you get. Or rather, you don't get to see at all. We are blind to her. We've blinded ourselves with pollutants. I'm not sure if her role is to make us feel guilty for-what-we've-done-to-the-earth, or to inspire us to diligence.

One of the strange things about the shekhina that I think about a lot, is that a correlative to her name are the shikunim — slums and housing projects — the urban wasteland. And it's precisely this that grieves the shekhina (at least these days).

When I was little, I had a storybook about the aleph-bet. In each tale, the Hebrew letters go off looking for the shekhina, the sabbath bride, the queen of god. And they cannot find her, for she has disappeared from the world, in her sadness. And when I was older I realized that she had gone into occultation — just like the 12th Imam, although his reasons differed.

Shekhina means 'residence' — the residence of the divine on earth. The dwelling place of the divine on earth. She takes up residence, but then discovers what we've done with the place, and bam, she's gone till we clean up our act. Or maybe she's just gone for good.

But no. She returns. She can't help it. She's drawn back into the dreams of the righteous. Drawn back in at Friday, sundown. She comes to those places where harmony is used to knit the world back together. Voices blend. Or bodies resonate together. For 24 hours, we bring back holiness.

That's what they say, anyway.

I don't think she'd exactly be drawn to the tyranny that the sabbath has become for many of the glat orthodox — a full day cycle of restriction and rigid rules. That's not the spirit of the shekhina, as far as I'm concerned. I think she likes it better when we pick up trash on the beaches, dogshit on the cliffs. But even that's not enough to bring her back into the world any time soon.

Shikse goddess: Now she's quite different. She is of the earth itself, and not beyond. She lives here, she breathes. She has some foreign ideas. She's not running away from anything. Right?

"Take some amaretto," she said, knowing that I do not drink.

"I'm not making fruit salad," I replied, confused.

"Something to drink. You need a drink," the shikse goddess said.

She's an alcoholic. That's what she says, anyway.

Don't get me wrong. She doesn't drink. She hasn't had a drop in almost twenty years. She has 'sobriety birthdays.' And when she reaches exactly twenty years, I think she's going to go out and celebrate. That part actually I just don't get. How can you celebrate sobriety with a drink? But her eyes light up at just the thought of it. And the thought just doesn't go away. Scary.

"You've had a bad day," she says. "A trauma. That's what a good cocktail is for."

Is that some kind of joke?

I stare at her. I know she's trying to help. But the fact is, I've never had a 'cocktail' in my life. I'm still staring at her. She means me well. I know that. I do.

"I'm Jewish," I reply. Which seems to you a non sequitur, but she knew what I meant.

"A cocktail helps you feel what you feel. Connect with your emotions," she said.

"That's what a therapist is for," I answered.

I mean, what would happen if you picked up a cocktail every time you had a bad day? I mean, where would we be then? The shekhina's already in despair over the state of the planet.

The shikse goddess replies, in all her wisdom:

"Maybe what the shekhina needs is a good stiff drink."