Cartoon Sound Effects

I really need cartoon sound effects in this post, to give you a general idea of how insane things have been. Like the Wile E Coyote going-over-the-cliff noise--that would be ideal.

I was in the process of writing my post-inauguration post when Tim and Squeaky arrived. They are still here. (Well, "there", actually, as my current "here" is at work, and they are--mercifully--not "here". But they -are- at my apartment.) Everything went fairly-well for the first couple of days...and then there was Friday.

Friday morning Tim told me "I'm going up north to arrange my storage space, and then I'm gonna stop by and see Betty and Jay." Okay, says I--I really don't care what he does, since he's a grown man, as long as it doesn't bring drama into my world. "I'll be home pretty early," he said.

At 6:45 I walked in the door and was immediately enveloped in Typhoon Squeaky. "He was supposed to be home....I am so pissed...He's..." here, he's there, she's texted him, he's answered, she's called him, he hasn't answered, he hasn't answered, she's called him again, again, again, again, again...he's texted that he's leaving at 8:30...he's awful, a liar, a cheater, he's using her, she's called him again, again, again, again, again....he answered! She yells, then she's sorry, then after she hangs up she's yelling again, because he SAID he was coming home at....

At about 10, I went to my room--not because I was sleepy, but just to get away from the teenage angst. She knocked on my door three separate times--once because he was on the phone and wanted to talk to me, during which she listened in on the extension--and the other times because she'd texted him and he hadn't answered, she'd called him, she'd called him again, again, again...he's so mean, he lets his friends tell him what to do...he's such a jerk, she's going to leave him...she called him again..

At 3 AM I got up to go to the bathroom. When I stepped out of the bathroom--there she was. "I called him and he let BETTY answer his phone!!! I hate that bitch..." She hates that bitch. She's gonna kill her. She's gonna kill ALL his friends. She hates them all. How DARE she answer his phone. "And THEN she said I was AGGRAVATING him. Well, he lied about what time he was gonna come home--I have a RIGHT to aggravate him!"

I finally got back to bed.

I try to think back, sometimes, when I am at my peak of Squeaky-induced rage; I think back to my first boyfriend, how insecure I was sometimes, how there were times I thought I would literally fall to bits if he didn't call me RIGHT THAT MOMENT. I remember being jealous of his female friends; I remember him telling me I had no reason to be jealous, then later finding out that yes, I did have a reason. (That whole kerfuffle, as a matter of fact, set off the chain of events that led to me eventually meeting JP.) I try to remember myself objectively, and I ask myself: Was I THAT insecure? Was I THAT annoying? Was I as underhanded as Squeaky is? Did I have such a sense of entitlement?

I made a lot--a LOT--of mistakes in that first relationship; biggest of all, really, was breaking it off in the end. He's a CTO somewhere now; he married the girl he dated after me, a friend of a friend. He went on to bigger and better things and I...well, you know what happened to me. I'd like to think I wouldn't change much about my life, but when I look at the divergence of those two paths, I pretty much conclude: yep, kid, you really fucked THAT one up righteously. But when we were together....Yeah, I had my moments. I was way, way too dependent on him, on his approval; then again, I was way too dependent on EVERYONE's approval back then--it was the way I had been taught to be. I fight that even to this day; I'm still trying to convince myself that doing things just for the sake of doing them, because it makes me happy, is a perfectly-acceptable reason. I'm still trying to teach myself that an audience is OPTIONAL, not mandatory.

And when I was scared, or when I was sad, or when I wasn't sure if he loved me--yeah, I'm sure I was a monumental pain in the ass--both to him, and to those around me. (I remember one night in the cafeteria, when one of my friends basically told me she wasn't going to hang around with me because I was being too depressing. This was not long after I'd found out I was being cheated on; she was the independent woman who didn't need a man, the master of her own destiny. Funny thing--she was the first one of our little group to actually stay married, and the first one to have kids. She's got three, and she and her hubby and their brood live someplace awesome on their enormous salaries. And I...well, you know what happened to me.) I'm sure Firefly could probably tell stories for hours, about what a mess I was back then.

But: Would I have ever gone on and on, nonstop, for three hours, about it? Especially to someone who has said more than once that she really doesn't wanna hear it? Would I have lurked outside the bathroom door at 3 AM, just so I could be sure I'd get to vent my spleen, because someone else had answered his phone?

Highly unlikely, I think. In fact, bordering on "HELL no." But again--I'm looking back eighteen years, peeking over the giant brick wall of 1995 in my memory, that dividing line between "things I'm trying to forget" and "things I just don't remember". Trying to think back, about ANYTHING, is like juggling glass jars of nitroglycerin: it's better to focus on the effort itself, than on what the consequences will be if you don't do it right. So maybe I'm not being fair to her; maybe Squeaky is just a karmic payback for the way I was when I was twenty years old. Hell, maybe I'm just jealous; I would give anything at all to be that age again, at that point in your life when you've just figured out that you have wings, but have no idea yet of how they work. I was never meant for middle-age; a stable, quiet life with seemingly nothing left to discover. I'm beginning to believe that what's been diagnosed as "depression" may just be a realistic sense of my own limitations, of what's passed by and what I've lost.

Then again, one of the benefits of middle age: I'm only watching the teenage soap opera, not experiencing it again. I don't know if that's enough of a compensation for everything else, but after last night, I'll tell you--it's definitely better than the alternative!