Great Snoring Banishment of 2004

Turning on the water

If I have a favorite household chore, The Virgin Mary will assure you that it’s definitely not cleaning out the kitty litter but maybe, just maybe it’s washing the dishes. And her hunch is a correct one backed by a year and a half of detergent-soaked proof. I seem to be always washing dishes and for awhile, my explanation was simply that it was the only chore I knew how to do effectively, but recently, I’ve realized that I do it more for the sense of cleansing satisfaction I get whenever I finish the job. It’s nice to be able to make something clean and pure again; in this world, you don’t get that opportunity very many times.

This weekend brought with it plenty of opportunities to wash dishes. CAT invited all of her friends to her family’s summer home for the weekend, and I graciously accepted the invitation. Considering the emotional repercussions of last fall’s Great Snoring Banishment of 2004 (see October 10, 2004 blog posting), I was hesitant to return to the Bradford, VT wood, but with lowered expectations, and less people in attendance, this weekend turned out to be more rewarding than the previous one spent there. And while I admit this partially had to do with the fact that I was not forced to share a room with The Paraguayan (the snorer, not a guy pretending to be gay), I believe that my improved spirits were more the result of a new friend that I made: The Righteous Babe (named as such for her startling resemblance [both physical- and personality-wise] to the original RB).

The Righteous Babe showed up late Saturday night after catching a bus from Boston and though I had only been at the house for half the day, her arrival was a much-needed antidote for the frustratingly annoying Ma Gorg (picture the traits of this Fraggle Rock character and Fraggle nemesis, and you know what I had to deal with this weekend). Ma Gorg has a dominant personality and because of this, she made a point of having her hands in every activity, food dish, and tangible part of the summer house, while making sure to rule every discussion, joke, and thought of the weekend. I learned very quickly Saturday that my favorite part of the house/property was always wherever there was the required space between myself and Ma Gorg to make her voice disappear. When The Righteous Babe arrived, I no longer needed that spatial filter because she brought with her a spiritual buffer to any and all stress (that may sound cheesy, but it’s the only way for me to describe it).

We set a place for The Righteous Babe at the dinner table and made enough food for the extra person, but because of commuting obstacles beyond her control, she arrived late and a few minutes after we had finished eating. Most of us remained at the table to keep her company while she ate her meal and it was quickly discovered that thanks to Ma Gorg’s generous second helping, there was nothing left of the main course for The Righteous Babe to eat. With a heartfelt appreciation for even having a plate set aside for her, The Righteous Babe devoured what was left of the salad and dessert.

The evening gave us the chance to play board games (CAT’s favorite past-time and the universal G-rated ice-breaker). While a few hours of games wasn’t remotely close to enough time to thaw the many layers of ice I had placed between Ma Gorg and myself, it did allow enough time for the green-house effect to take effect between me and The Righteous Babe. And for that, as is often the case, I can take no credit. And I doubt that The Righteous Babe would take credit either; she was simply doing, I believe, what came naturally to her (ie, she was being herself).

The rest of the weekend allowed for many opportunities to nap, read, write, play games, go for walks, enjoy the scenery, eat, sit in front of a fire, have great conversations, and all the other activities silently implied by the term “R & R.” And after nearly every meal, in an effort to chip in around the house, and while mentioning my inability to do any other chores (specifically cook), I washed the dishes. The weekend would have been perfect had it not been for the fact that Ma Gorg was part of nearly all of it. And then:

Monday morning, after an enormous breakfast I classified as in my list of “Top 25 Breakfasts of All Time” and after a satisfying weekend, which, because of Ma Gorg’s constant interference, was not completely satisfying, I found myself on Closure’s doorstep, washing dishes and standing beside The Righteous Babe, with a towel in her hands. We were alone in the kitchen and took the opportunity to talk about everything two strangers could possibly have time to talk about in 10 minutes, which is to say we didn’t talk nearly long enough. But what we did say was important, I hope, to both of us. While she gave me career (and on a subtextual level, life) advice, in an ironic conversational twist, I may have given her the advice for which she had not yet realized she was looking.

Regretfully, I finished washing the last dish and hesitantly, The Righteous Babe dried it and filed it away in the cupboards. She said that I should write about two strangers/new friends washing dishes in the kitchen and I assured her that I had already written part of the story in my head. A few short minutes later, with a hug and well wishes, we said goodbye and I waved to her as she drove down the long driveway. After watching her car disappear into the trees, I returned to the house where CAT had already begun the process of closing up the house by shutting off the water.

This Funk I’m In

I go through these phases. These anti-social, anti-people, anti-doing, anti-anti, anti-everything phases. Mama Benchly would call it depression. Of course, she thinks the world is depressed. I’ve stopped going to her to talk about things like this because it only ever ends up with her diagnosing me as utterly hopeless and in need of some serious medication. Instead, I fight through the phases by myself. I don’t call it depression. I call it Being Benchly (BB).

Some but not all symptoms of BB:

1. I become irritable at everything, big or small. Take, for instance, my posting a week ago about the Great Snoring Banishment of 2004. In the grand scheme of things, not a big deal at all. During BB though, it’s HUGE. I pick fights with people whether they deserve it or not.

2. To avoid picking fights with friends, I withdraw from any interaction with them. I don’t answer the phone as often as I normally do. And I hardly ever return phone calls. I turn down offers to hang out citing excuses as truthful as “I’m not feeling well” and excuses as unbelievable as “Sorry, I might be going to Alabama this weekend.”

3. To justify staying home and not seeing friends, I tell myself I’m going to accomplish those tasks that always seem one rainy day away from being finished. For example:

a). The 2004 Purging of Unwanted Benchly’s Stuff (PUBS);

b). The Photo Album Project of 2003 (PAP);

c). The Great Reorganization Of Benchly’s Style (GROBS) in which I donate old clothes to Salvation Army and purchase new clothes on clearance racks.

3.1. I never accomplish these tasks and instead, watch movies or TV. Occasionally, I read. But typically, reading annoys me during BB, too.

4. Rather than save money by grocery shopping and preparing my own meals, I either eat out, or eat crap.

Now you can see why Mama Benchly calls it depression. And you know what, it probably is. Hell, it runs in the family anyway. But I refuse to believe that this problem and these phases I go through are only beatable through medication or counseling. Why can’t I do my thing for a few days, be aware of the funk I’m in, consciously force myself to beat the funk, move on, and repeat as necessary? I have to believe that this is possible because if it isn’t, then I have to deal with the fact that I’m not a complete person on my own. And I’m not ready to deal with that.

So if I haven’t responded to your emails yet, or if I haven’t returned your phone calls yet, or if I picked a fight about something stupid, or if I don’t feel like hanging out right now, please take note of the aforementioned and wait a day or two. I’ll be around soon.

Jeff Goldblum Syndrome

My favorite song lyric from the last year comes from Iron and Wine’s song Bird Stealing Bread:

“Do his hands in your hair feel a lot like a thing you believe inor a bit like a bird stealing bread out from under your nose?”

This has nothing to do with anything other than it’s the song playing right now as I type this.

So I’ve returned from the wood. I spent the last 48 hours at my friend CAT’s parents’ summer home in VERY VERY VERY rural Vermont. The house was incredible and so too was the company with whom I spent this weekend. The majority of my temporary housemates were related to each other and this became evident almost immediately as you heard the many years they’ve spent together echoing in their smiles and laughter. But I never felt like an outsider…except, of course, when it involved their family’s complete dominance at card games.

I had plenty of time to play fetch with the dogs and all of them knew the remarkable command “GAME OVER.” If they were begging you to throw the ball and you were tired or it was obvious that they were tired and needed to rest, all you had to say was “GAME OVER” and they’d take the ball from your hand, walk away, and lie down somewhere. That’s a command I needed for myself when I was growing up. =)

I also had plenty of time to read from the book I’ve been reading the last week or two: The Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers (I think I got the title correct). Great story and great writing and I often hear my thoughts and feelings in his words. And this is both comforting and frustrating. Comforting to know that I’m not alone in my thoughts and frustrating because now what the hell am I supposed to write about?!?!

The food I ate this weekend was delicious with a capital FREAKIN! I ate so much that I’ll be digesting all winter. And we got to sit in front of the fire place at night, which is always a treat. But then, the straw that broke my 27 year old camel’s back:

I snore. There, I said it. I snore like it’s nobody’s business. I snore like it’s my job and I love what I do for a living. I’m loud. VERY loud. And like ALL snorers, I can’t help this. And believe me, I want to help this. I want to wake up in the morning and be asked how I slept and answer “great” and have that be the end of the discussion. But instead, my life has been spent having the “how did you sleep?” “Great!” “Yeah, I know, I could HEAR you ALL night” conversation. And call me sarcastic, but after 100 times, this conversation and all similar conversations get old…

So, last night, not only did I have to deal with the snoring jokes but I also had the pleasure of being banished from the living room couch and fireplace and sent to a room in the corner on the second floor with the other snorer, as far away from all nonsnorers as humanly possible without going outside. And believe me, when I offered to sleep outside instead, the “oh no, you don’t have to do that” responses came with hesitation. Am I being narrow-minded? Is it wrong that I’m slightly put off by being forced to sleep away from the rest of the group and next to a snorer (who kept me up) so that everyone else doesn’t have to?

I think the real issue here is my self esteem. I hate the outsider feeling I get when people make fun of my snoring and I hate BEING an outsider by being forced to sleep somewhere because I snore. It reminds me of when I was in kindergarten and Dukes of Hazard was the cool show on TV and so when the cool kid in class brought in his Dukes of Hazard matchbox car, the next day all the kids (including myself) brought in cars. Only…I didn’t have the Dukes of Hazard car. I had an orange corvette. And so when I tried to play with all the other kids, they said “That’s not a Dukes of Hazard car! You can’t play with us!” Was it my fault I didn’t have a Dukes of Hazard car? No. And yet, there I was, forced to play by myself in a corner of the kindergarten classroom. You can imagine, as a 5 year old, how crushed I was when this happened. Well I felt the same way last night.