Just Keep Me Hanging On

This was supposed to be the week that solved everything. The week that I became a real person — yknow, one of those people that you read about, who have a job and a plan and relative emotional health and a bank balance. Instead, I’m halfway between ajitter and awander, doing that Thelma and Louise thing with the candy bar in the fridge, not even committing to food. And it’s Green & Black’s new dark chocolate with ginger bar, so it’s about as commitment-possible as I could get. Tall (double the size of regular green and black), dark and spicy, it had my heart. And it’s about all that does. If it wasn’t for that and the works of Jane Campion, I would be wearing the full-on armour of despair. Yes, even now it’s sunny because, of course, I can’t carry all 80 exam papers that require grading somewhere sunny. And, every time that I leave the house, I seem to get bitten by something that is not Angelina Jolie (she has my permission) so my hands and arms look like I’m auditioning for third demon from the left in a bad episode of Angel.

Luckily (oh, the irony), I’ve been spending many happy hours waiting in phone queues, allowing me to scratch away at the bumpy bits (where’s the super grading power aspect of the demon when you need it, huh?). Scratch, scratch, scratch go my non-nails; tra-la-la goes the telephone; and the hours pass by, leaving me in the same spitting distance of the middle of nowhere as I was before I made the call. On the flip side, I have a very tidy desk and the new Lucinda Williams CD. But the big fish, the one that will feed me after September, ain’t biting — not even with the bait of "one more thesis chapter to go." Yes, ladies (and the occasional gentleman) I am officially one chapter short of a thesis. In so many ways. OK, so I haven’t quite finished the conclusion (on feminist uses of porn — ok, sometimes my life is cool) either, but I’m sure if I watch In the Cut seventeen or eighteen more times, I can pin some thoughts down.

It’s been a whole week since I last went to the cinema. I’m in withdrawal. Hence, possibly, the chocolate thing. Because opening the fridge, with the light, it’s like watching a film. Women in films are always going to the refrigerator. Random observation. Of the randomness that occurs while you’re life is in hock to the morons at Sympatico or Canada Post. My call is, they say, important to them, so they will suck my brain out through my ears by playing me total shit so that when they finally answer, I will be too mentally and emotionally numb to give them the bollocking that they so thoroughly deserve. Phone lines. Ticket lines. Lines at the grocery store, lines of squalling babies and people trying to get fifteen cartons of soya milk into one canvas bag. Lines. Waiting. More waiting. Occasionally, I cross something off my list — and then unfold the inches at the bottom that have accrued while I accomplished that one task.

So everyone wants a piece of me and no-one’s prepared to pay for it, or make an exchange. Or (in the case of phone service people) talk to me like I’m not a complete moron. It’s not like I’m not assertive — I once got IKEA to deliver a bed, next day and free of charge — it’s just that I’m not good with bullshit. I hate it when people ask "Is it OK if I put you on hold?" It’s not a real question. Have you ever tried saying no? I have. You just get put on hold for longer. Or hung up on. So, yes, I’m a little hung up about the amount of time I have to spend dealing with other human beings in meaningless, inefficient ways. It leaks into all my other interactions, and into my relationship with myself. For sure, I am inefficient and capable of great meaninglessness. But I feel like I spend so much of my day on hold, that when it comes to anything that needs contemplation, I’m too restless. I won’t put myself "on hold" and just stare at a piece of paper until a poem or thought comes together. I start hearing eighties’ pop hits played on pan pipes.

I don’t even have the patience to wait for the future to arrive, which is both inconvenient and stupid. The idea of fate has always appalled me — we should be free (or, at least, believe ourselves free) to make our own choices, and be responsible for them. Right now, though, I’d give up a dose of free will in return for a little destiny. Maybe an oracle or two; a prophetic dream that came with signed assurances; or even just a little self-confidence.

I can just imagine, me being me, what would happen:

Welcome to Future Fortunes Incorporated. Please listen carefully as our menu options are changeable. For tomorrow, press one. For one to two weeks, press two. For long-range forecasts, press three. For unavoidable destinies, press zero.

Please stay on the line. Your call is important to us and will be answered. That is your first prediction, at a cost of $5 per accurate short-term answer.

Except it sounds like a Charlie Kaufman script, and I hate that idiot. Maybe I’ll stick to my tried and tested methods of being anxious and crisis driven. There’s nothing like hanging on to old ideas about who I am and what I want to do, and expecting new ones to just fall from the sky. Which is about as likely as getting a satisfactory answer from customer services.

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