Eternal Sunshine of the Neurotic Mind
Posted by Moose on May 27th, 2009. Filed under: My Brain Needs a Drink.I made an astounding discovery last week. YOU DON’T NEED A MICROWAVE TO MAKE POPCORN. That’s right, you can make it right there on your stove! Just like they used to do way back in 1966, when nobody had microwaves. Genius!
What’s astounding about this discovery is how long it took me to make it. I’ve been hankering for popcorn ever since I moved out of my old place and into my new one, where even if I owned a microwave, there’d be no place to put it except outside my front door, where it would be sniffed and possibly peed on by my landlady’s black cat and the large raccoon who sometimes masquerades as the black cat and gives me a coronary when I try to shoo it away. My thought process was this: I’ve always made popcorn in the microwave. Therefore: no microwave = no popcorn. It never occurred to me to investigate the matter further. Even though I would have needed to go only as far as my own cupboard. Where one of my housewarming gifts has been sitting for a year. A gift of, you guessed it, A BAG OF POPCORN. FOR THE STOVE. I just never read the label.
So I’ve been eating popcorn with truffle salt every night for dinner. Occasionally I’ll add a salad but mostly I just eat the popcorn. It’s everything I thought it could be.
Since There’s No Way to Move Gracefully from Popcorn to Slight Malaise of the Soul, We’ll Just Skip the Segue Altogether
I’ve been feeling a little less than my usual relentlessly sunny, unbearably Pollyanna self. This confuses me, because I’ve worked really hard this past year to stop basing my happiness on external factors and focus on what’s right rather than what’s wrong, blah, blah, blah. POLLYANNA ALERT. GET YOUR SLINGSHOTS READY.
But lately I’ve been feeling a little left behind, as if I haven’t built anything permanent when everyone around me has and is. I was talking about this with a friend a few days ago and, after a pause, she said, “Well, you have your blog.”
My reaction fell into two distinct categories:
- That’s true. I like my blog. It makes me happy, it’s a nice place, and the people I’ve met/corresponded with because of it are lovely.
- OH MY DEAR GOD, HOW SAD.
In better moments, my life feels very free, and full of possibility. Who knows where I’ll be next month? Maybe I’ll have a dog and a new apartment, maybe I’ll have found someone I can build a future with, maybe I’ll have moved to Malaysia. But these past few days, it just feels like failure. Because my brain can take an admirable desire to take full responsibility for my life and quickly turn it into a list of garish, glaring mistakes, headed by a massive pink neon sign blinking, “WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED, WOMAN?” This is entirely too simplistic, of course - everyone does things in their own time, I’ve always moved a little slower than most, and happiness and self-worth ISN’T a product of outside circumstances. My rational mind knows this. But my emotions have a way of conjuring up a dead trout and using it to beat my rational mind into submission.
But, damnit, sometimes it’s OK to be a little down. I wouldn’t want to crawl into bed for three months, reemerging only to replenish my stock of cookie dough, but a few days is not going to kill me or my gung-ho pioneering spirit. There have been – and will be - some endings this month, and it’s all right to mourn them.
When I’m done, I’ll resume my relentless Pollyanna-ing and you all can load your slingshots with raccoon pellets and popcorn.
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May 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
You know what? Sometimes when life hands you lemons it doesn’t HAND you lemons it slingshots them in your eye and then laughs. So yeah, I agree: Sometimes it’s FINE to be down. Because sometimes? Life does suck.
But that makes you appreciate the times when it doesn’t suck even more. No?
May 27th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
It is indeed okay to be down sometimes. There there, Moose. It’ll be okay.
May I share a tip with you for cooking that popcorn on the stove? Get some coconut oil and use THAT to pop the popcorn. YUM.
May 27th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Turning 29 in two weeks…know how you feel. Still, the possibilities are, indeed, endless.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Ah,it’s absolutely okay to feel a little down every once in a while in my book. I remember something that Kahlil Gibran had written in The Prophet(I think), that said something to the effect of us having to remember that the same well from which our laughter rises was often filled with our tears. I found that a comforting thought.
For now,there’s popcorn!
From,
A Relic in the Making!
May 28th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Oh my gosh, it’s SO okay to be down. I think all of us, no matter what life stage we’re in, feel left behind sometimes. There’s always somewhere else we could be, something else we could have, some life that seems better than our own. I think that’s just how it goes and you do the best you can. And sometimes life calls for sad. So be it.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:00 am
It’s totally OK to feel down. And probably the norm lately, with all the junk that’s going on.
You have your blog. I don’t know why, but this strikes me as super hilarious. I think the next time I’m down, I’ll shout out, “At least I have my blog!” Heh. This is funny.
Big hugs to you and I hope you start feeling sunny again.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:14 am
even Pollyanna needs a break once in awhile.
May 28th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Eesh, this hits home. I am feeling the same thing, lately. Though I haven’t yet tried popcorn as a cure for malaise. Maybe I’ll give it a shot.
May 28th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Well, one thing to consider is that inevitably some of those folks who seem so settled and to have built something will lose some of it. Now that I’m 36 I’ve been through that (divorce, selling my downtown Charleston house) as have many of my friends.
So, there are never any guarantees, and no one is ever “set.” Therefore you’re not behind, you’re actually really ahead!
May 28th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Pollyanna Schmollyanna…take a break, eat more cookie dough, if you haven’t surfaced in 2 weeks I shall either a) send cookie dough to prevent starvation or b) send a hunky fireman to make sure you’re ok.
xox
May 28th, 2009 at 8:35 am
When Moose becomes “relentlessly sunny” again and you need an antidote, try this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4tugPM83c
May 28th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I think you would have to be a robot not to get down sometimes, and heck it seems like most of them even have a bad day sometimes.
One of my roommates in college liked to make popcorn on the burner, and totally set it on fire once. She was just standing there yelling “Fire! Ahhh! Fire!” until I walked over and stuck the pot in the sink. Which was about 6 inches to the right of the stove. So should this happen to you, do not forget that water beats fire.
May 28th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Deep breath! Big hugs coming your way really soon. (Not that my hugs can change your world, but it’s a start, I suppose!)
May 28th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Popcorn for dinner (with parmesan cheese and Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salute, made in an air popper) is my most missed thing from being single and living alone. ENJOY THAT SHIT NOW! Because if you’re like me, your eventual husband will be totally grossed out by all the popcorn eating and you’ll have to more or less stop. Seriously.
May 28th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Perhaps the conjunction of Jupiter/Uranus/Kyron precipitated your latest plunge from sunniness. Yeah, blame it on the planets.
Also, too bad you didn’t check with relatives regarding popcorn. They’ve even popped it in a basket (metal) over an open fire – yum!
Love you and may sunshine return soon….
May 28th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Popcorn on the stove ROCKS!!! I hadn’t had it since I was a kid (my husband, never) and he has started making it recently on the stove, in a big ‘ol pot. I don’t think I can ever go back to yucky microwave.
And it’s o.k. to be down sometimes. 1) Your hormones make you not be able to help it 2) everyone seeming like they are doing “the next step” around you doesn’t help.
Just enjoy living vicariously for now. Take mental notes of what’s working/what’s not, and the things you would like to duplicate or definitely leave out when it’s finally happening for you. And then be that friend who has the spotlight all to herself, not having to share time and calendar space with others, gets married, is madly in love and has 3 babies before 5 years has passed. That’s usually how it happens.
I love reading your blog!
May 28th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
OH…..my favorite way to have popcorn from the stove is to put it in a paper grocery bag…it soaks up the extra oil.
May 28th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I disagree with you on #2, I don’t think it’s sad. I think it’s wonderful that blogging has people writing, and not just the usual dumping grounds of venting that people do in their old-fashioned diaries.
I’m with you: it’s okay (and often necessary) to allow ourselves time off, now and then, from our perpetual Pollyanna-ing.
I wonder if they even make Jiffy Pop anymore?
May 29th, 2009 at 11:23 am
It’s an odd, that sense of feeling blue and all “oh, woe is me,” yet knowing that life is pretty good, by and large. Hope it passes soon because it’s really annoying, like a bad hair day that just won’t end.
And congratulations on rediscovering stove-popped popcorn. I like my sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Cheese makes everything better.
May 29th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I think the down part has been coverd. But the vinegar and salt popcorn has not. Vinegar! And Salt! And Popcorn! If that doesn’t make you sunny, then I will get concerned for your well being, otherwise we’ll just assume the ennui or whatever will pass:)
May 29th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
This is so how I’ve been feeling lately too, as you saw by my pathetic, whiney tweet last night. I feel down and irrelevant and you hit it on the head with feeling left behind.
As soon as this happens, I look for a reason or think “maybe it is time to go back on anti-depressants” but then I remember, life isn’t all cupcakes and unicorns and Bacon. Sometimes it isn’t the best and it is OK to feel down.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:15 am
Oh, the stovetop popcorn! We used to make… what was it, Jiffy Pop? Yes. When I was a kid. WAIT. My memory is getting clearer, clearer… Dear god, we actually made popcorn in the fireplace. How’s THAT for pioneer?
Do your mournin’ (that’s how pioneers talk), then chin up! Maybe try getting a little glass prism and holding it in the light. Didn’t that work all kinds of happy miracles for the real Pollyanna? Maybe not… I haven’t seen it in a while.
(Actually, all you really need to do is read the Harry Potter series again. Salve for the psyche.)