Mark and Jim and the three dollars 

 Whitney's emotions are off the rails

I don't think i've ever known someone who has such a hard time dealing with their own emotions.  I mean on a level that I'm stunned. Because I feel them snapping back and forth, abruply. And it can be quite a scary thing.

 Everything Negative and Only Negative

Yeah so this lady i worked with, very vivid in her complaints and conversations.  I'll call her BPE.  She loves to be upset, and outraged, but when you point out The Positive, she skirts right around it. She's getting let go from her job, yet she has secret freelance work and will be on a severence salary for 6 months. So really she'll be making much more than she was making - a salary, and the outside work. And, they offered her a fulltime job already, at the place that its giving her frelance work. But she doesn't want THAT, no no.  I'm in the same boat, having lost my job from the same institution. 

So I am attracted to the Complaints, like a moth to a flame. And, in fact, am more fascinated, because she is a fountain of woe, a fountain of complaint and upset.  This seems to be a pretty strong attraction on my part, throughout my life. Positive and upbeat? Not as interesting.  Complaint and negativity?—I'll be right there. I hate it, and yet I love it. As Andrea always says, if its not one things, its your mother.  I learnt well from my own parent, a Comfort Zone.

When I try to pin down the details about oh you have WORK now, suddenly!-she doesn't want to talk aobut THAT. She wants to talk about how everyone screwed her over, they have no heart, she lost her job, no on else in her dept got cut...  negative negative, victim victim.  Her boss actually did call her6on her very final working day (of the long slow 60-day wind-down), to wish her well and say an official goodbye. Dotty is the name of her direct boss.  But BPE would only focus on what a horrible person Dotty was, prior to this goodbye.  

Obviously this inability to see Some Positive points to an unhinged quality, emotionally deranged and feeding on the most outraged and upset part of her core.  Even while, she's doing fine and so on.  But since i myself am drawn to that, am I any better? Clearly I enjoyed and was faascinated by this disturbed outraged passionate person.  Its kind of interesting.  What do I get, from this? Something, obviously! I can't say its just her, thriving on the negative. I have to certainly be enjohing the ride!! 

And I'll feel cheated once she gets herself all set up, and starts to scold me- for not brushing myself off and walking off my own situation!  

See how things will turn? She'll be UP, and I'll end up DOWN.  I can already see the writing on the wall: that I listened and listened, with fascination, but in reality it was all a ruse. She was just venting nonstop as a nonstop victim. But in reality, she was fine. and will be fine.  And I'll be sinking slowly into my own depression.

Ah well.  So be it. 

 If I Had A Dollar...

If I had a dollar for every time D wanted a favor, something made on the computer for him, money, a videotaped session, to listen to his endless streams of nothingness that are all about his own fascination with self... I'd have a LOT of money!!  I know what's what, and yet somehow I'm riveted and feel like I need to comply.  While my Inner Voice says... NO!

 the Lady at the Laundry

well basically I was doing my laundry, and brought a crap ton of mags to go through as i waited my laundry to wash... and then waited more for it to dry.  Lots of cheesy entertainment magazines.   I got my coins from the crabby unpleasant attendant, quarters for the dryer.  I shoulda known better, but... 

When I was done with the mags, as I got close to the garbage by the door, I turned to the attendant. "Do you want these magazines, I'm gonna throw them out."

The looked at me with contempt and disgust.  "I don't have TIME to read MAGAZINES. You think I have time?"

Um, no. 

So I tossed the magazines. 

But I remember her contempt.  

i tried to give her something, and she gave me something: A Memory.

 Sign the Paper!! 

I have a funny memory, going to the movies with Amy.  At the two dollar theater, where they'd show second run movies.  This when movies were what, 12-14 bux a pop.  So people would just go to whatever movie, without regard to anything.  It was two dollars, to sit in the theater!  

Remember, this is way before streaming existed, the late 1990s.  People would pay their two dollars, and just pop in, and if they felt like shouting at the action on the screen, they would. 

So anyways, this movie I'm at with Amy, Air Force One, is about the president's plane taken over by hijackers while in flight. Harrison Ford's the president, and he's sneaking around trying to outwit the hijackers, as we all expect old Indiana Jones actor to do.   The defense dept catches wind of the scenario, and urges VP Glen Close to authorize shooting a missile at the plane before it does damage. (Remember, this is PRE 9/11, so the very notion of hijackers commandeering a plane for something like that was HIGHHHHHHH fiction!)

The Secretary of Defense is hanging over VP Glen Close, 
"Madame President... we're going to need you to sign the paper, to authorize the missile. (beat) You're going to have to sign the paper."

VP Glen Close is unsure, and we're sitting there with the tension of the situation. 

When the movie was over, Amy was in a state: horrified and traumatized. 

"The guy next to me was brimming with rage. It was scary."

The guy to the right of Amy—i was completely unaware—simmered with rage, at Glen Close's hesitation to authorize shooting down the hijacked president's plane. 

"Sign the PAPER, you stupid bitch!" the guy next to Amy had blurted out. 

Lucky for me I was two seats away, and I could happily munch on popcorn without even knowing that this had occurred. But today, I relate it back, to you.

 Seeking Narcissism

that'll be my book title for my essays all about myself haha.

I only say it because I realize more and more, I'm drawn and I crave... the narcissist.  I guess its something to hide behind, be fascinated by, and maddened by as well!!  i seek the big self absorbed persona of these people, yet its unhealthy to try to get something from them.  because they're super wrapped up in themselves—thus the term Narcissist! 

Oh but they LOOOOOVE me - because I seek their heat. 

Its all bad, man.