Stressin' Like a Fool

This is probably just going to be endless, directionless chitter chatter...a warning for those of you who'd like to check out now. There are just so many things on my mind and too few open ears sometimes.

I put on all of my gym clothes and now I'm not going. When you see those people every day, they get to see your struggles and they see the days that you come in looking like you just drank some lean. And I base that idea off of the fact that I completely do this. There are the regulars that you see every day. If they come in looking like a hot mess express, you wonder why. If they gained 15 pounds, you wonder why. If a guy looks like a deflated balloon compared to the last time you saw him, you wonder why. I mean, I never particularly CARE about the real answer, but I know that I am currently the object of a lot of wondering, and I just don't want to bear the weight of that while I'm doing my squats. The f!@#&ing barbell is heavy enough as it is. Seriously, I hate squats. After my 3 sets of 12 you can usually find me clutching onto the support beams for dear life, huffing and puffing despite my superior cardiovascular capabilities. Anyway, I know that avoiding the gym in this situation is kind of cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I figure that going to the movies to see Bad Teacher will make up for it.

So anyway, on to a much better, brighter subject: death. The death of a child, to be more precise. I see those HORRIBLE St. Jude's commercials at least eighteen times durng my cardio routine. Literally the saddest thing I've ever seen. I think the girl on the machine next to me thought that I was going to puke or something. I had this frowny look on my face, and she kept glancing over at me with concern. It killed me to see those little tiny 3 and 4 year olds being lowered into big machines...no hair, skin and bones, with scared looks on their faces. They looked so brave, and I cannot even begin to express to you how unfair it truly is that such small children need to look brave at all. The brave looks should be on the faces of their fierce little mommas, but instead the moms just have to watch and hold hands as the most important person in their lives has to fight like hell just to stay alive. And I know the cancer itself and it's treatment hurts so badly. No baby should know that hurt. How do these mothers deal with this? How do you stand it? It's so grossly unfair. Not just regular unfair, not "that asshole got the job over me" unfair, but SICKENINGLY, horrifically, maddeningly unfair. I would do anything to make it stop. I think every woman in the entire universe would gladly step into the place of any of those children. And if they say that they wouldn't, they didn't see the faces that I saw.

It makes me think of the story of Jesus. Crucifixion is such a painful way to sacrifice your life for someone else's...but I think every mother on planet Earth would take that fate over the suffering of their children.

Except Casey Anthony, who single handedly makes me wish that Hell exists.

I was worrying the other day over the fact that I am extremely unemotional about a lot of things that really should have some effect on me. There have been a number of situations in my life that would've made a few excellent Lifetime movies. Usually after they happen I'm aware of how I SHOULD feel about the incident, crying jags and the like, but I don't. I mean, sometimes I do act as though I'm adversely affected just to feel normal, but the truth of the matter usually is that I feel nothing about it. The only two emotions I've noticed really FEELING in my body would be sympathy and maybe embarrassment. I don't know where I'm going with this. My brain feels scattered.

I can't figure the characters in my book out. I don't know who they are. I know what they DO, but not WHY. And I don't want my book to be some mindless science fiction novel whose main objective is to get the girl in a tight fitting leather space suit before chapter 3. I want my characters to seem real, to seem multi-dimensional, to be believable and likeable. I've read books where the characters seemed so real that at the end of the book I was upset. Good books should make you sad at the end even when the ending is a good one...just because you have to leave the world and leave the characters that you really have come to love. To those of you who don't read, this must be the geekiest thing you've ever heard. Or read. If you're hearing this blog, then please let an adult know.

I can definitely see how most credible books are not written by anyone under 30. Before that particular age your inner monologue regarding the story just sounds like this: "Should they have sex now? Now can they have sex? Would it seem too pubescent of me to put a sex scene here?"

Seriously. It's a problem.