Update Post

This is an update to: The Cost of Inertia.

A while ago, I asked for your advice about what to do with some boxes that I had stacked in my house.  Well, folks, I finally did do something with the boxes.  I returned two of them back to UPS store, which was kind enough to receive them.  Based on the quizzical look on the face of the man behind the counter, I don't have high hopes that the boxes will actually find their way back home.  I tried to return a third box to Fed-Ex, but Fed-Ex refused it.  That box and the last box (which had no return address) were opened and the contents were given away.

Thanks again for all your input and help!  I appreciate it.

Fool for Love: The Inertia Edition

When I was younger, I was terrible at leaving relationships. There could be blaring air sirens and a light flashing "Run! Run!" above a guy's head, and maybe a year later could I pull together the emotional resources to say,"Bob, I don't think this is working out.  I've lost hope that I could ever mean as much to you as your My Little Pony collection."  This is no exaggeration.  In high school, I spent more than a year trying to please a guy who physically fought with me.  As I've previously admitted, I stuck to a man who demeaned me over a Subway sandwich.

Obviously, I had a problem with low self-esteem.*  But I also had a problem with simple inertia.  To break up with a guy, you have to commit to hours of raw cross-examination.  "What went wrong?"  "Why can't we fix this?"  "Can't we try harder?"  You spend days wracked with doubt, wondering, "Did I do the right thing? What if this is the only guy who'll ever love me?" And, the worst part, you feel bathed in acid for hurting a man you deeply care about, despite his flaws.  So, I would put off and put off and put off the inevitable.  Consequently, I gave away years of my life like dinner mints.

Yesterday, I was looking over a diary that I hadn't opened for several years, and I came across two back-to-back entries that made me both laugh and cry at my younger self.

June 16, 2001.  ....Which reminds me of Vronsky**.  We're still dating.  We have been monogamously together now for 2 1/2 years.  It's hard to believe considering that the progress of our relationship seems to have been stalled at the early stages of development.  The state of our relationship -- it's slow development -- was fine with me until recently....Suffice it to say that I finally came to the point where I feel I need to look at the relationship with Vronsky not only in terms of the fun and immediate comfort we take from one another, but also in the terms of a real future prospect....I feel as though I should start working now at finding [the right] man.

 March 21, 2004.  ....I told Vronsky today that I need a "break" from the relationship....Vronsky, though he loves me deeply, is not convinced of the belief that we will marry one day.  While I have many doubts of Vronsky and doubts of the whole institution of marriage, I found his position startling and disappointing.  I felt as though I have been pouring gallons of love in a paper sailboat.  And whose fault is that?  Only a fool would think a paper sailboat was seaworthy, that this relationship had the fortitude to sail into eternity....

Let me sum up all the moron tax captured in those passages:  My relationship with this man stopped developing after the first few months, and yet I continued to date him.  It's not until about two and a half years later that I realize this relationship isn't going anywhere.  I then wait an additional 34 months before I can bring myself to break up.  Oh!  Doesn't it make you want to bang your head against something?


*For those of you who might feel concerned, rest assured that the pendulum has since swung the other way.  These days, my self-esteem has evolved into something like a wombat -- plump, cute, and a little surly -- and life has been better this way.  Good men like wombats.

**In case it wasn't obvious, "Vronsky" is not his real name.

Happy First Anniversary

Today marks the first anniversary of my blog.  I have had a lot of fun sharing my tales of woe and humiliation with you, and I hope that you got a chuckle or two from them.  Most of all, I hope that, by sharing my private missteps with you, you have felt some community with me.  The world is vast and people remarkably diverse, yet no matter who or where we may be, we tend to stumble in similar ways from love, inattention, pride, and naivete.  Our mistakes can bring us closer.

To celebrate the occasion, I put together a short compilation of posts.  They are not necessarily the best written, the most painful, or the funniest -- I just like them.

• The beginning.
• The introduction of Moron Tax Credit.
• My favorite post about my parents.
• My favorite featured posts (a tie between Angela and Kevin).
• Worst photograph.
• My most humiliating incident.
• The dumbest self inflicted injury.

Thank you everyone for reading my blog!  Please remember, if you have a story of moron tax or any ideas, please share them!  I am very excited to hear more from you in the coming year.

- Wendy

Ouch!

A little while ago, I was washing my pan in the kitchen sink.

And I slashed the back of my hand open with the rim of the pan.

I then spent the next ten minutes one-handedly ransacking my house, looking for some clean gauze.  There are now several drops of blood trailed around the house -- on the kitchen counter top, on my dining room table, on my futon, in the hallway closet...   Luckily, the bleeding stopped a few minutes later.  I'm pretty sure, though, this is going to leave a pretty ugly scar.

Of all the ways a frying pan can injure a person, I didn't thinking slicing through your own skin to the fatty tissue was a possibility.  Did you?  I suppose I can call this moron tax (forgive me) cutting edge.

* Update Post here.

Update Post

This is an update to: Out of the Wild.

Back in September 2009, I went on a 200 mile hike.  When I returned, I took photos of my blackened toe and traumatized feet.  I also noted that I had lost much of the sensation in my big toe on the right foot.  Well, almost seven months later I'mI happy to report that I'm nearly healed!  My heels are back in good condition and can feel my toe whenever I stub it.  Also, all the dried blood crusted underneath my toenails is almost gone.  Just in time for summer sandals :)

Update Post

This is an update to: Pieces of Me and Peeling Skin.

I recounted in previous posts that I have sheared off pieces of my hands with common household implements.  Apparently, rock guitar legends aren't much more careful.  The media has recently reported that Jeff Beck sliced off the tip of one of his fingers with a knife while preparing a stew.  He subsequently had the finger tip surgically reattached (I wish I had thought of that).  He now has insured each finger for about $1 million dollars each.

See the story here.

Getting Pwned by Your Own Dog

Fool for Love: The Poetry Edition

As I previously mentioned, people tend to do silly things when they're in love.  We become so overwhelmed with emotion for another person, that a desperate feeling arises in us to vent that emotion.   I am sure a few, if not most, of you have at some time in your life pondered a thought similar to: "A phrase as over-used as 'I love you' could never do justice for a love such as ours -- a love that makes Heloise and Abelard look like a one night stand."  So we, the besotted, pull out our materials of choice -- construction paper, watercolors, cassette tapes -- to express ourselves.  We then present these homemade creations to our loves with the same intensity as if we were handing over the quivering heart itself.   We watch their faces as they unwrap the gifts, anxiously searching for a sign of understanding that this mix tape of carefully selected songs means I would die for you, this comprehensive photo collage says I will devote my life to your happiness, and this hand painted ceramic piggy bank says your love alone creates meaning for me in this universe.   It's a lot of expect from a piggy bank.

My medium of choice has always been poetry.  Why poetry?  Oh, probably because I am terrifically bad at it and I tend to gravitate to those things that cause the most humiliation to myself.  Also, the intoxication of love tends to over-inflate my confidence like beer must do for most guys.

I've included a couple poems I've penned in the name of love and the responses I received from the recipients.  I count these poems as moron tax, because, I sent these poems with intense emotion and received, in return, the equivalent of "That's nice, Wendy."  Also, though it may not be obvious, I lavished time on them and yet they are still thoroughly bad. 

The Poem:

If I could have anything in the world,
I'd lay you undressed on my bed
with your arms and legs half-outstretched.

Then I'd stop time.
And you'd lie there looking
beautiful as a brittle leaf.

This would then be a good opportunity

to pull my white coat from the closet
and reach for the clipboard I keep
beneath the bed.

I'd stick my fingers in your ears

and jot down my findings.  I lick the
rim of your nostrils and I'd tap your chest with my fist.

I'd hum to myself as I examined you

this way, lifting each of your limbs
to uncover your hidden spots.
The last thing to do would be to bite you,
gently, on the thinnest part of your skin.
Perhaps to draw a little bead of blood, so I can
see its color in the name of thoroughness.
  
At the end, I'd nod to myself knowing
that I have done what I can. I'd lie beside
you and place my hand upon yours.
We'd lie together like that for what feels
to me to be days. And when you wake up,
you'd feel as if you've known me forever.

The  Response:  

"what a sweet poem. needless to say my night was a drag and it didn't help that i woke up early in the morning.  mother's day is next week! i might as well get a cot."

The Poem:

There are times when you look at me
as though I might as well be skipping stones
into the ocean as talking to you.


If you could know
all I am trying
to do is cast one bottled message
into that immense and foreboding water
to spite the impossible
chance
that it could deliver itself
to where it would matter.


Perhaps one day,
you might discover
washed upon your shore this
small and curious bauble.


You could take it in your hand
and raise it to the bright sun
to shed light
on the far flung hope
still captive and curled inside.


Then I, while you
stand there blinking,
may finally be received
and pitied.

The Response:

"I loved your poem, but it made me very, very sad. (OK, I admit that I had to look up "baubel".)"

*I consider all pain in this blog entry to be self inflicted since the men never requested such emotion outpouring and I set them up for unfair expectations.  Nowadays, it makes me laugh to imagine them receiving these ill-conceived poems and wondering, with some desperation, how to respond without offending me.