Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 5

Words, Words

I wrote 4,000 words this weekend. I’m a little tired and frazzled about it, but happy.

C, M, and I went out to a different cemetery looking for Edmondsons. We found them. Here’s a cool one:

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Also, after much trying, I found the Mt. Pisgah cemetery and saw this for myself:

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The people Edmondson made stones for seem to fall into two categories: people in his neighborhood (even people in his neighborhood who were taken to Franklin to be buried) and a few folks in Mt. Pisgah.

Mt. Pisgah is an old black farming community off Edmondson Pike and, though I haven’t been able to show it, I deeply wonder if Edmondson’s people had ties to the area.

Faking

Well, it turns out that you can’t tell your therapist that you’re too tired to fake being a person all the time without her becoming very concerned.

I didn’t even get around to telling her about the massive panic attack I had on Tuesday.

So, she’s going to talk to my doctor. I’m going to see my doctor in a week.

I guess shit will happen.

Feels like a particularly bad time to lose my mind, but maybe it’s just a particularly bad time to have waited so long to get help.

Anyway, the podcast recording went great. I’m going to have a story in the Nashville Retrospective and in the Nashville Scene in April about the Looby bombing. I’m pondering pitching something to some bigger outlets.

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This is the blanket I’m working on right now. The yarn is pretty inconsistent, but I like how it’s looking worked up.

It has these cool wiggles.

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Still Here

Sorry for the silence. I used to feel like I had a lot to say, but I don’t so much anymore. I assume it will come back.

I did make paper, but it wasn’t dry before I left my friend’s place, so we didn’t print on it.

I’m working on an afghan that I really like and I’ll put up pictures later.

And today I’m going to record a podcast, which I’m pretty stoked about.

My parents have decided, at least for now, that they’re not going to move. They might think about it again in five years. I’d like to tell you that I have complicated feelings about this, but I don’t. I just feel relief.

And, frankly, anger. I just realized this as I’m typing this, so I’m not sure why this pisses me off, but it pisses me off.

I think maybe a little it pisses me off that I fucking broke this winter. I wanted to die. I laid on the ground in my back yard hoping the earth would swallow me up or I’d get hit by a meteor or something in this goddamn world would make sense. I splayed open emotionally and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through.

And for what? For nothing. For things to be exactly how they were. For them to chicken out.

Which feels dumb to be mad about because I don’t want them here.

But it just also feels like this is how reckless and careless they are when it comes to me. That they would cause all this for no reason.

Also, I’m pissed about how cool I am and yet no one wants to date me. And I’m also super pissed about being pissed because I don’t want to date anyone right now. Which makes me feel like, even though I’m feeling better, my anxiety brain is still trying to find a way to make me feel like I’m fundamentally unloveable.

When maybe the world is just filled with dumbasses?

Ha ha ha. Lord. God. I’m so tired of feeling like shit.

Words I Made

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On the left are some words from the bombing manuscript. I printed those! Like, that paper was blank and now it has my words on it because I wiggled my fingers and moved my arms.

I set the type for my name, put all the letters in order backwards.

I’m going to make some paper, next. Put words that I wrote on paper I made.

Then I’m going to have all kinds of feelings about it.

Me and Some Letters

Y’all, I spent the afternoon farting around printing things on a letter press printer and it was so much fun and cool.

I typeset my name and the press makes this incredibly satisfying series of “ka-chunk” sounds.

And there was a plate (I guess? I don’t know what this shit is called) of my own words. Words from the bombing book.

And it made me feel a way I don’t know how to articulate. A kind of existential wideness. Or something.

Stuff I’m Mulling Over

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My friend is going to be a dad. He’s colorblind and I wanted him to have something for the baby that he could know he was seeing as it is. Maybe this is just my hangup because of the headspace I’m in, but the idea that everything in the baby’s life is going to leave you out in a way you can’t do anything about just bugged the shit out of me.

I just wanted there to be something he could know he sees as the baby sees.

I have a bunch of leftover yarn, too, so I’m going to make two or three for them.

I talked to the Butcher. It helped a lot and I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the necessity of drawing boundaries and whether and how I’m able to do so. And I’m trying to think of this time as painful because I’m repairing.

But I talked to my therapist about how I believe Life will make you eat crow from time to time and how I used to think that multiple personality disorder was a con to get you on Donahue. But now that I’m living through my brain doing this weird shit? Like, obviously, I’m not developing multiple personalities. But I’m in a room at one end of a long hall, metaphorically, with folks dealing with that at the other end of the hall.

And now I know the hall is real. So, I also see their room is real. And it makes me cringe about how I was a jerk about it earlier.

But she explained, too, that disassociation (and I guess multiple personality disorder now is considered some kind of dissociative disorder?) is a protective mechanism. The problem isn’t the dissociation. It’s when that protective mechanism malfunctions.

And that also made me feel better. Me and my brain. We’re trying. We’re both hoping for what’s best for me. And sometimes we know how to do that and sometimes we don’t. But it’s still coming from a place of caring about myself and wanting myself to feel safe and loved.

And I feel like that’s a good thing to know about myself.

Stuff I'm Mulling Over

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My friend is going to be a dad. He’s colorblind and I wanted him to have something for the baby that he could know he was seeing as it is. Maybe this is just my hangup because of the headspace I’m in, but the idea that everything in the baby’s life is going to leave you out in a way you can’t do anything about just bugged the shit out of me.

I just wanted there to be something he could know he sees as the baby sees.

I have a bunch of leftover yarn, too, so I’m going to make two or three for them.

I talked to the Butcher. It helped a lot and I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the necessity of drawing boundaries and whether and how I’m able to do so. And I’m trying to think of this time as painful because I’m repairing.

But I talked to my therapist about how I believe Life will make you eat crow from time to time and how I used to think that multiple personality disorder was a con to get you on Donahue. But now that I’m living through my brain doing this weird shit? Like, obviously, I’m not developing multiple personalities. But I’m in a room at one end of a long hall, metaphorically, with folks dealing with that at the other end of the hall.

And now I know the hall is real. So, I also see their room is real. And it makes me cringe about how I was a jerk about it earlier.

But she explained, too, that disassociation (and I guess multiple personality disorder now is considered some kind of dissociative disorder?) is a protective mechanism. The problem isn’t the dissociation. It’s when that protective mechanism malfunctions.

And that also made me feel better. Me and my brain. We’re trying. We’re both hoping for what’s best for me. And sometimes we know how to do that and sometimes we don’t. But it’s still coming from a place of caring about myself and wanting myself to feel safe and loved.

And I feel like that’s a good thing to know about myself.

Turning into the Skid

They teach you–or they taught me, anyway–that when your car loses contact with the road, because you’re hydroplaning or sliding on ice, you should take your foot off the gas and keep your steering wheel turning in the direction you want to be going.

So, if you start sliding through an intersection you’re trying to go straight at and your car starts to go left, you turn your wheel right. If you start to go too far right, you turn your wheel left. You’re still going to slide, no matter what, but the point is to try to make it through the skid without an accident.

I guess this metaphor is too on the nose.

I’ve been sliding sideways since Thanksgiving. I think I realized in time that I needed to take my foot off the gas. But I’ve really only taken the steps I need to turn in the right direction in the last couple of weeks.

I’m still sliding, though, and I wish there was some visual representation–some color I could wear or a hat or something–that would let people know my brain is not working correctly and that I need time and space and gentleness.

I talked to my friend. We’re okay. I still feel super fucked up about it, though.

Stuff

On the good side:

I went to see my editor’s band. It was fantastic and, with the exception of having to be in a crowd where multiple strangers touched me, I had a great time.

My editor’s wife wants me to make some flowers for her spring collection. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

A friend introduced me to Robbie Basho and I love it.

I’m going to have an excerpt from my book in the Scene in April.

My book will have a cover by then! Maybe sooner.

I got a lot of good coverage in Publishers Weekly: here and here.

I’m making a baby blanket for my color-blind friend and I’m loving how it’s turning out:

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On the bad side:

Shit’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. I’m crying a lot and I’m so tired.

And I think my craziness has ruined a friendship that was important to me and I’m bummed and stressed out about it. And mad.

The anger feels like not a good thing.

Yuck

Today was not a good day. Everything feels fucked up and awkward and I hate it.