It was the first weekend in three weeks where there was no agenda. I was free to do whatever I wanted. On Friday, I was still slightly recovering from my cold, so to knock the recovery out of the park, I stayed in. I made sure all of the alarms were off and settled in for the greatest night of sleep ever.
The one thing I had scheduled for the weekend was an Improv workshop at 3 pm on Saturday. I was excited about this. Saturday morning came. I wanted to write that the morning dawn came through my windows and the sunlight tickled me awake. But that's kind of effeminate, and it didn't happen. I woke up with the distinct desire to not get out of bed. I also had the distinct desire to urinate. Since I didn't want to lie in my own urine, I got up to pee, but happily crawled back into my bed, just like a kid. I keep a few books near my bed, so I finished reading Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. It was a lovely read.
I stretched out getting dressed and preparing for the day as long as I could. I pretty much dried each individual strand of hair separately. It was very peaceful. Then I put on a very characteristic winter outfit and walked the mile to the improv workshop.
During the 5 minute break at the workshop, I checked Twitter on my phone, and I was overcome with confusion. The tragedy in Arizona had just happened, and it was reaching the news wires, and being retweeted. A part of me wanted to ask others in the room if they had heard about it yet, but another part didn't want to ruin the mood. That seems like a silly thing to say- to ruin the mood, but it was a very real concern of mine. I didn't want to be the girl who brings up terrible news in the middle of what's supposed to be a very fun afternoon. So I kept it to myself until the walk home. On the walk home, I mulled over many things, and tried to find the balance. I had a wonderful two hours of creation with improv. I wanted to do more of it, to continue with that outlet. However, there were also awful things going on, and it felt irresponsible to ignore them.
I have trouble finding the balance between the general outrage I feel and my desire to not offend people. The basis of my desire to not offend people comes from not wanting to be offended. However, I’m coming to realize that I’m not quite as easily offended because I am willing to consider reasonable arguments. The ideas I feel outraged by are in general not open to reasonable discussion. Also, often I feel as though I’m not knowledgeable enough to firmly ground myself behind a point of view. I also don’t attack things with enough fervor. In general, I don’t actually agree with a friend of mine on most things. But she’d never know it because she’s loud enough to drown out any point of view coming from a meeker place than hers, and she will never back down. Kudos to her, I suppose, on some level. Except I think this type of discourse can be extrapolated to represent others like us. People who care but aren’t confident in the facts to back up their feelings will be bullied by those with a better grasp on the language and volume of politics.
That idea wasn't fully formed on the way home, but it was getting there. (And will continue to form, to include both more specific, and broader instances.) I made a few phone calls to check in with those friends who have more interesting lives than I. Indeed, they were all busy. I picked up a pizza from the pizza joint across from me and went home to eat pizza and drink wine. It was only 6 pm, but at that point I had decided to stay inside.
I had been itching to rewatch Donnie Darko, so I popped that into the DVD player. And when it was over, I watched it with the commentary. The commentary was actually pretty interesting, because it was a specific director's cut commentary, which was made about 3 years after the release of the theatrical version of the film. And director Richard Kelly had his good friend Kevin Smith sit in with him. It provided great levity to the weight of the project.
Sunday morning came along similarly to how Saturday morning had, but with even less on my plate for the day. I didn't want to go outside anymore- this was just something else that made me want to be a recluse, but not exactly for the obvious reason. The obvious reason being that I don't want to get shot. I actually care less about being shot and more about the general discourse we face when being out in public. I just want to get from my home to the liquor store without being confronted by every nut job who learned how to read. Of course, I believe this kid was a complete nut case. But for some reason, this tragedy has gotten to me a little more than all the other tragedies of similar nature. I actually got up and watched Meet The Press in the morning. This is not something I usually do, but I wanted to arm myself with knowledge, instead of just feelings.
Shortly after, however, that feeling faded. I wanted to create again. I still didn't want to go outside though. Luckily, leftover pizza and Netflix Watch Instantly provided me with all the nourishment I needed.
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