I'm Over Getting Older

Wednesday morning, three weeks ago: I wake up to the phone ringing - I hate that. Who calls the house phone at 6am? Really? I put it out of my mind and let my mind wander back to my dreams. It's 7:20 and the home phone is ringing, again. I can hear the shower running. There is no one else to answer the phone. This better be life or death because I am about to verbally break someone over the phone, I do not appreciate home phone wake up calls. My father tells me he bought a plane ticket. Gee, thats quaint - wtf for?! He then realizes who he is talking to. He tells me my younger brother is in the hospital, he's on the next flight to Chicago. I am dumbfounded. This is one of the few instances in my life where I am rendered speechless. My sarcastic wit and sharp tongue are stripped of their super powers and I am starring at our white cordless like it has leperosy. I'm sorry, what just happened? There are people running around me at a pace I can't understand because I can't seem to move. I wonder vaguely if they are speaking the same language as me, perhaps I should slip into a different one. My mother doesn't do crisis. She survives it well enough, but she doesn't live in it well. I take control of the situation. I think this is how cruise directors feel. I can't feel anything. Everyone is offering me food and I kind of want to hit them. Nothing is happening. With the major exception that my brother is coding somewhere 4 hours by fricken jet engine. I bury my heart beneath about three layers of old fashioned malia.

[Sidenote: In case you don't know, if you were to rewind the VHS that is my life to even a year ago - you would encounter a young woman who lived purely off adrenaline somewhere between joy and anger. During those years, I lived constantly under around ten layers of old fashioned malia. Now, to bury oneself under ever one level of old fashioned malia is to secure your well being from all forms of basic humiliation and human cruelty, from there it only increases exponentially. Two layers of old fashioned malia will protect you from most military weaponry, while three will protect you entirely from direct nuclear contact. With four levels you could very comfortably inhabit extreme climates, such as those Venus offers, and by the time you've hit five, you make Super Man look eggshell breakable. Any more than that? I'll leave you to the imagining.]

My brain whispers quietly, "This is the fallout. Prepare for the worst." By the time the dust settles, I am doing what I do best. Living under constant fire. I was built for extremes. Put me in an overstressful environment and I will thrive. My calm will shock and amaze the most qualified marine. I am never clearer than when the whole world has gone to hell. I am truly under the belief that when I am in crisis-mode, there is nothing I can't handle, so perhaps it is only my ego that is infallible. But, of course, all things come with a price. I am running at full sped keeping the rest of the world informed as to the nuclear fallout my family is experiencing and attempting to maintain normalcy. I don't even notice that layers of old fashioned malia are creeping in to tuck me goodnight, wraping me in the comfortable warmth and numbness they provide. We hit four layers - five. Then Friday, the second bombshell. My grandmother, my fathers mother, died. Ironically, about the same time my brother regained minor consciousness. Miracle? Sure, why not. I prefer the term "bitchslap" - but to each their own, right?

It's Friday one week later and I can taste the air. There is limitless sunshine and rainstorms that are the equivalent of luke warm showers. The colour palatte is blue and green with red dirt and coral sand. Those are the only colours I even bother to absorb. English is broken and no one will ever bother to fix it. I have freckles and my heart beat is in time with the tide. I can't sleep. I haven't slept in two and a half weeks. I close my eyes and lose track of the time, but it's not the same thing. My brother is headed back to Seattle with "extensive recovery" waiting for him. My grandmother is a pile of ashes that no one will make a decision about. I feel exactly two things: Joy and Anger. Laughter can pull me from my negativity, but it seems to be the only thing. I'm not sad, I'm not upset, I'm not broken, I'm just pissed off. The crisis stage is over and now the healing begins - or whatever. That just pisses me off even more. Why yes, there is something wrong with me. I have my grandmother's ashes and an attitude problem, swell.

I'd like to apologize in advance for my behaviour because I can go ahead and predict it. My sarcasm has returned with a vengence and my music selection says all you really need to know about me. I keep laughing out loud at myself and glaring at people who dont understand my dark humour. I don't think I've taken my headphones off for more than 45 minutes consecutively. I've done nothing all day. Nothing. My brain feels like it might explode at any moment and the weather is making me nauseous. What's worse? Is I can't even think of anything to do. I'm broke and can't seem to find a job to hang myself with, living at home which is okay but not okay [everyone over the age of 18 should know what I mean by this], and I have no friends. Now, I don't mean I'm friendless What I mean is there aren't people in this Suburban Hell to hangout with. No one to grab a beer, rent movies and throw popcorn at the television, go for hikes, or even just sit around and bs with. Maple Valley is the black hole of the Milky Way, people get sucked in and end up in an alternate universe - if they aren't destroyed completely.

[Second Sidenote: When people experience some kind of crisis? Don't offer them food. Odds are, they aren't hungry and are completely numb to everything that is going on around them. Plus, they don't need a refridgerator full of nonsense they won't eat until it goes bad and they have to throw it out and then try and remember to whom each set of tupperware goes! And then they have to remember to get it back to you! Offer them cash, to buy gasoline and their own damn groceries, or your company. That's what people in crisis really need. Everyone backs off so that people can have "space" and whatnot and leave those going through stuff alone to ponder their thoughts - jinkies, swell thought process. If they want you out of their house, they'll kick you out. Until that point, pester them.]

Nothing personal.

I can't check my email, it pisses me off. Why, you ask? I have no idea. It just does. So does facebook but that is attached directly to my ridiculous cell phone with it's genocide condoning technology - so I can't help but check it redundantly. There were women in the bathroom of the Maui airport discussing how men are pigs - these women happened to be wearing short shorts and shirts that cut so low, I'm pretty sure were meant to be lingerie. I had to laugh at them. Ladies, you don't deserve respect - you demand it. If you play into what a guy wants from you, you are going to be treated poorly. Demand respect and you'll get it, or he'll leave. It's that simple. Yes, men are pigs, but who are you to throw stones dressed like that? You all piss me off too.

While I'm laying the frosting on thick, why is it that there are Help Wanted signs all over Hawaii - aka paradise - and I can't find a mothertrucking job in the center of rainy version of the artic circle?! Seriously, someone buy me a plane ticket. I'll spend the rest of my life as a surf rat sleeping under palm trees on the beach and stealing pineapple, bananas, and mango off the plantations. Ha. Gracious, I'm funny. Better yet, anyone want to invest in purchasing Malia a sail boat? I'd have time, so I promise to actually write the book I've been teasing you all with and split the profit. Or maybe I should just start now, seeing as I have no life, and finance myself. Not that the book would have a plot - but, of course, neither does Tucker Max's and that fool made money off exploiting his own life as the pop culture equivalent of a man whore. Would publicizing my own life be as profitable? Hard to say...

Well now! I'm thrilled to say that this short episode of Malia ranting, brought to you by the accumulation of bull shit going on in my life currently, has short circuted my lifeless anger issues. That is exciting. Let's hope it lasts, shall we?