"How are you?"
(Internal monologue) "How the fuck do you think I'm doing, asshole? I mean, not that you actually care or anything. If you actually gave a flying fuck about how I am you wouldn't ask that shitty question, you would ask a more personal question. With that question the only response the questioner expects, or wants, is that the questionee is fine. In reality I feel like shit. I got, maybe, [insert number] hours of sleep. I didn't eat breakfast. I was almost late to [insert class]. I forgot/didn't do my [insert class] homework. I'm anxious because I have, like, [insert number] papers to do this week. I hate my body. My brain likes to constantly remind be how much it hates me by not telling my body to make more happy chemicals. I had to deal with [insert disliked person]. And to top it all off: I have a migraine making my eyeballs feel like they're being squeezed out of my skull. But you don't care about that, so, what I'm going to say is:" (External response) "Oh, [choose one of the following: a) I'm fine. b) Ugh. Tired. c) Meh.] How are you?"
"Oh, you look like you're [twelve/fourteen/fifteen/in high school]!"
"Nope, twenty-three, out of college for over a year now." Plus a forced smile.
"Really??? Well you'll be grateful when you're older!"
Maybe. Probably true. But right now, today, it takes a whole lot of self-control to bite my tongue and nod.
“i love music too!”
i hear it so often nowadays
everyone is a music lover
of all styles, mediums, and genres
but not even close to really meaning it.
these people don’t lose friends to Mahler
or throw away lovers for J.S. Bach
or make excuses about family dinners and errands when asked to go out
just for a few more hours alone with a bottle of whiskey and their guitar.
they rest easy at the end of their days.
they don’t lie in their beds for hours
fighting sleep just because they know
sleep would mean no more vinyl until morning.
they’re just ordinary people
with ordinary lives
and ordinary likes forming ordinary sentences
never knowing how it feels to drown in extraordinary love.
if that’s really what loving music is
then what does that make people like me?
people who have a hard time settling for like
choosing instead love hurled with reckless abandon.
what does that make the musicians?
the people who spend days lost in dirty pianos and diminished fifths
who spend nights fiending for fermatas, double-flats, and triple-fortes
consumed by passion instead of simply consuming the world.
what does that make the dancers?
the people who are told to sit still and shut up
who are ridiculed for being born with more genius in their feet
than most people have in their souls.
the singers, songwriters, and composers
the listeners, lovers, and writers
the savants, prodigies, and virtuosos
and the ones who couldn't hum a note to save their life.
what does that make us?
Stop Having Kids. It Makes me Uncomfortable
"You know how that happens, right?" (I'm pretty sure kids come from thin air, or is it from eating too much pizza? I need a refresher.)
"What, you guys don't have a TV?" (Because television is the cornerstone of any successful relationship.)
"Wow, you have your hands full!" (Want to help? No? Then keep moving, people!)
All the time.
I usually smile and say something like, "Yes, I'm blessed. My kids are awesome."
What Time Is It?
I get asked this inane question at least fifteen times every day.
Do you know what the most annoying thing about it is? I'll tell you; everyone who asks me has, in their pocket, a smartphone!
I work in a hotel.
There is a grandfather clock in the hallway with a huge dial.
There is another hanging behind the bar service area.
There is one nailed to the wall in the main kitchen.
There's another one in the housekeepers store area.
I am only ever asked what time is it by my fellow staff who walk past a clock face at least once every two or three minutes, yet STILL I am destroyed by the same old question.
Get a life!
“Are you okay?”
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"You're just really quiet."
I'm not sad, upset, mad. Anything. Thank you for your concern, but considering you ask it everyday and I give you nearly the same answer everyday, it get old. Really old. Yeah, I'm quiet. That's me. No, I'm not shy. I just appreciate silence. Just because I know how to shut up, unlike you, doesn't mean I'm really sad or something weird.
