Identity Crisis

Yah, this title is the word I came up with on the third try of a dictionary-flip word-prompt. The first two tries were adjectives, so I discounted them as ‘Word-a-day’ prompts. And ya gotta have a great prompt. 

My Webster’s New World dictionary defines identity crisis as ‘the state of being uncertain about oneself regarding character, goals, etc….’

So I guess that means I have an identity crisis every day. Except that I’m pretty sure about my character. My goals? Oh, too many to reveal in here to complete strangers, other than what I’ve already disclosed. (That’s just how Geminis are—we’re selective about what we divulge) 

Perhaps I’d be more goal-oriented if I had an employment-prompt. Sigh. 

In the meantime, my identity is fully intact. I’d find it impossible to have an identity crisis when I know exactly who I am, to so many people:  

To my mom, I’m the one she shares stash with, (our code-word for chocolate) and her deepest secrets; secrets my brothers aren’t supposed to know about until she’s six-feet-under. (You’ll also notice she made top-billing in my novel-ish ‘acknowledgements’)

To my dad, I’m the one who knows all about geriatric-healthcare, so I can ‘take care of him’ when he’s old. Unfortunately, he’s failed to digest that he’s spent years self-righteously chipping away any warm-n-fuzzy feelings I could possibly have for him.

To my brothers, I’m the free-spirited, childfree, older sister. One lil' bro is more accepting than the other, which will leave a gap one day that I’m not sure how I’d fill.

To my nieces and nephew, I’m the easy-going Auntie Writer, who’ll be there on their 18^th birthday, ready to pay for their first tattoo. (If they choose)     

To my friends across the pond, I’m ‘Helene Hanff’; someone who wants very badly to visit the lily-pad of English literature, and chat for days over a pint.

To the staff at Powell’s New & Used Books, I’m the one that sits in the back, or to the side, during the book-readings, when I’m not spending hours in the stacks, determining which used and cheap paperbacks to toss into my plastic shopping cart.

To my favorite authors, I’m the one that leaves an occasional comment on their Facebook page, while either reading voraciously, or turning up a nose at a particular volume of their work. (I’ve always believed one didn’t have to like a writer’s/musician’s/artist’s entire body of work. Sometimes one just likes some things, and not all things. Or, is that just us Geminis?)

No, none of this sounds like an identity crisis. Sounds more like I’m just self-aware, and dealing with it humorously. Now, a mid-life crisis? That’ll be interesting. I’m about that age for one. Only I haven’t any baggage that usually comes with one. 

Perhaps that will be my identity crisis.

Résumé

It’s been suggested to me—by those left unidentified—that Geminis are haywire, peculiar, eccentric, unconventional, wacky, pluralists, half-cracked, odd, birdy...basically everything under the ‘flaky’ category in my thesaurus.

I’ll concede to mild eccentricity for some. Unconventional, however, is my favorite word. I AM unconventional.

Another favorite word is progressive. Geminis are a progressive sort. Need more? How about dynamic, modern, tolerant, lenient, enlightened, advancing, revolutionary, enterprising, broad-minded, moving, flowing, effective, alive....

‘Alright, already! We get it!’ you’re likely thinking. Hey, cut me some slack. I’m a writer. Dictionaries and Thesauruses are my two BFF's in the whole world. (But don’t tell my bestie, Mai, that!)

The reason ‘progress’ is at the forefront of my gray matter, is because I now feel (medically) recovered enough to try and crash through that invisible ceiling that feels like a hiring-freeze. If you’ve read my old blog entries, you’ll remember that I patronized an (unnamed) employment-help facility.

Well, it’s been almost a year, and despite the number of workshops and hiring events that I’ve attended, I can’t help feeling like I’ve been hitting my head against an immovable wall. And it seems they’re not one to promote many resources outside of themselves. IOW, if they can’t help you, then it’s YOUR problem.

So, progressive-thinker that I am, I’m ‘taking my business elsewhere.’ In a sense, anyway. I attended an orientation yesterday for optional employment service opportunities. I find it difficult to do anything while ‘keeping fingers crossed’, so I’ll simply think ‘cautious optimism’, and leave it at that.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and someone there will see my unconventionalism as a plus, and steer me towards a writing job in which I can sit around a boardroom table most of the day, drinking Starbucks, and offering eccentric ideas as to what a literary magazine cover should look like, and what kind of content should be involved.

An extra plus would be a roomful of Geminis, chanting our mantra: Embrace Pluralism.

Word-A-Day

    For about sixty seconds, the idea of a writing exercize using a single word seemed absurd to me. But I thought, what the hell. So, I closed my eyes, and flipped through my Oxford English dictionary like one of those motion-picture books with a moving cartoon in the corner of a page. I stopped, slammed it on my desk, and stabbed my finger to a page I had yet to see. When I opened my eyes, I saw I’d pointed between 'olive', and 'olivine'. Since I know nothing about magnesium iron silicate, I figured I'd be better off with 'olive'.

     The most I've ever thought of the word 'olive' (other than it's what Hawkeye always liked in his 'very dry martini', on the T.V. show, 'M*A*S*H') was the Olive Garden restaurant. I'll readily admit I've liked that restaurant for a long time. It's been a favorite of my family's for many reasons. I do love Italian food, though for all I know, Italians may think of a franchise such as that as bourgeois; such a mass-produced cuisine may be an insult to their sense of taste.

     But I try not to think of such middle-class-conventionality, when enjoying Portobello Ravioli. Or, as I couldn't resist referring to it one evening, at a table of friends and their teen daughters, as the 'Bella Swan Special', to the waitress. It takes no time at all to conjure the image of eight pairs of eyes looking at me in shock, before menus that were previously closed were suddenly ripped open again as their eyes scanned the contents once more, wondering how they could've missed such an item.

     "Where did you see that?" More than one voice whispered, before they find it under 'Antipasta', and decide to change their orders. I cringed a little at what I'd just done--I've caused the poor waitress to have to scrawl out the previously, and carefully written orders, to write a whole new order-ticket. Eight orders of Portobello Ravioli. But it's also funny to discover who's the closeted 'Twi-junkie' in this lot. It's obvious in the 'under twenty-five' age-group, but harder to discern if someone remains tightly ensconced in their 'Edward' or 'Jacob' closet. (Me? I'm right out there---I ordered the 'Mushroom Ravioli' in the first place, after all.) No really, I do love mushrooms on just about everything; with my salad, with my pasta, with my sauteed shrimp, and mozzarella. Everywhere but my tiramisu---that would just be weird.   

     Olive Garden evokes much. It's where my Da like his Father's Day meal, and my Mah likes her birthdays. I like it on an occasional Sunday. Not too often, as I don't wanna get sick of the place. But the atmosphere is fun: sometimes formal, sometimes casual. That's just one of the reasons I like it; its flexibility. You can go 'dressed to the nines', or like you're an extra in an episode of 'Magnum P.I.'. The food is tasty, the drinks are fruity, and the prices are reasonable.

     It's where my father wanted to announce my Sis-in-law’s pregnancy to a roomful of family and friends. My Mah and I quite literally brow-beat him into silence beforehand, though, as it wasn’t our place to announce something so important…and so precarious; she had lost a pregnancy of twins the year before. Olive is also the shade of green that covers their resting place.
     My baby bro, Jim, (Jimbo to his two elder siblings) likes the Garden, too. He's familiar with the concept of 'olive' as well. It's the shade of green he's been required to wear for fifteen years now; an 'olive-drab', as I call it, when he's awakened at 4:30 a.m. for reveille. It's what he wore in Afghanistan, in Iran, in Iraq, and Korea. It's what he wore when he climbed Mount Sinai with a group of his friends. ('Dogs', they're called)

     My Da went to church the next Sunday, and proudly announced to all in the congregation that 'Jimbo' had supposedly stepped on the same ground Moses had. Did I mention that my Da is a retired Baptist minister? He still likes to tell that story.

     Though Jimbo can appreciate that experience, he'll show more enthusiasm when he tells you about scuba-diving down to a sunken military-transport ship that still had jeeps and motorcycles stowed away within it from sixty years earlier.

     "Wouldn't it be a blast if we could raise some of them, work on them a bit, and get them working again?" he once asked.

     Right, sure. Like that’ll happen.

     He shrugged. "Stranger shit has happened," he said.

     He's right, of course. Like, a woman who wins a 'Progressive Jackpot' on a slot-machine in a nearly-empty room, on a Tuesday morning, (3:17a.m. exactly) at a casino I was employed at long ago. She'd barely played $7.00 worth of quarters at a 'Wheel Of Fortune' game. Anyone in the U.S. could have won the $653,782. The machine made its 'ding-ding-ding' sound just as I was passing her by.

     Oh yeah, she was having a martini with an olive in it, too. Just like Jimbo said; strange shit.

     Olive is the color my brother proudly wears, while protecting me from another attack on our piece of the Earth. He's one of many whose life-risking choice to serve his fellow man allows me the freedom to go back to school, and aim for my dreams of becoming a published writer. Olive Garden is his favorite indulgence when he’s home on American Soil. And we readily indulge him, because it's where our family celebrates life.

    Whodathunk I would've written so much, and evoked such memories, over a single word.

45

I’m pretty sure I’m one of the few people you’ll meet that’s absolutely honest about their age, especially as I have a birthday coming up.

Why the honesty? Because, quoting Rhett Butler, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn."

However, I tend to ask those who don’t know any better how old they think I am. You’d be surprised how often I’m surveyed as being younger than my years. A couple of years ago, while at school, I asked some of my classmates to guess my age. 

“Mmm…you can’t possibly be over…33. Nah, 32.”

No joke. That is a direct quote. As soon as it was said, I wrote it down in my comp-notebook, word-for-word. (That’s what writers do—we write stuff down so we don’t forget)

I could say something enterprising or eloquent, such as “It’s the water in Portland,”…but then, Oregonians would say that’s the wrong environmental element to give credit to. 

True, I don’t spend a whole lot of time absorbing Vitamin D, the way I did as a kid growing up in California, when no one knew shit about skin cancer. But then, it’s also not because I can't reveal to the world that I sparkle. (Cue eye-roll here) As I’m too broke to afford those pricey ‘youth-enhancing’ miracle creams in those darling jewel-like jars, I rely on my lifestyle.

Though, not everyone’s willing to give up having youth, in order to have youthfulness. What the hell am I talking about? You’re new to this blog, aren’t you?

Once upon a Gen-X time, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself to live exactly the way society—and an overbearing relative—defined as ‘the right way’ to live. And, if I’d lived by those made-up standards, I would’ve felt like a miserable failure. 

However, the Gemini in me soon detected the bullshit that came with others perceptions of rightness. And over time, I’ve discovered my lifestyle has served me well. Of course, like any life-choices, it has its ups and downs. 

Downside? Being perceived as unlucky because I chose not to marry or procreate.

Upside? Being perceived as lucky because I chose not to marry or procreate.

Yah, the spectrum varies, depending on whom you’re talking to, and when. Such as, having to come up with funds to send your brood to college, as opposed to sending yourself to college. 
If you’re sending yourself, you can be pretty sure you won’t be dropping out of classes, and hiding the fact from your parents. 

So, back to ‘I’m knockin’ on forty-five, but look early-thirties’. I think by now, even I’d admit I look more mid-to-late-thirties. Lately I’ve been gaining some gray hair that I’m able to mask with L'Oréal. And a certain amount of pudginess has “smoothed out any wrinkles,” as wise ol’ Mom has suggested. 

In my not-the-least-bit-humble opinion, I've learned a lot from having the time to be introspective. And here's the key:

Your 20s are for discovering true independence…and being stupidly arrogant.

Your 30s are for living the lessons you gained in your 20s…remembering how stupidly arrogant you were.

And your 40s are for laughing at the 20 y/o’s.

It's my tumor, and I'll blog if I want to...

Don't have a strong stomach? Then what the hell are you doin' in here?? Everything can be looked up on the internet, so how d'you think I knew what my own benign fibroid tumor may look like? I Googled it, after all. Wikipedia doesn't always get info wrong.

My surgeon finally came through with the 'sliced-n-scooped-out' pics. My tumor turned out to be way bigger than any grapefruit. This is what 6.7lbs. looks like. (I was told there was a collective gasp in the operating room. I aim to impress...even under anesthesia) Looks like one of those personal basketballs you can get at your fave team's souvenir stores.

Ladies: I only discovered a couple of months ago that I had this, because I thought it was time to go for a full physical exam; being sure everything was okay 'inside'. Imagine my surprise. :O

So, stay attuned to your physical health. :)

                                                                  

But, talk about "Damn!"