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Tag Archives: low self-esteem

Blog Before Run, Or Am I Too Lame?

Last week I hoped I was ushering in a new era of Not Late Lame Post Friday posts.  Alas, it was not to be.  Here it is Saturday morning, and I sit on my couch (lounge, really), listening to what I think is some kind of pigeon (maybe a mourning dove? It sounds pretty sad) and wishing I was already out running. One thing I love is running or walking in the morning and hearing the birds sing (or is it a morning dove with no emotion attributed?  I don’t know from birds).

One reason I am blogging before my run is that I am waiting for it to be light out.  I just can’t trust the sidewalks and roads this time of year.  I have wiped out on the ice too many times this year just walking (one hideous incident on my uneven concrete front steps).  I emphatically do not want to do it while running.  At my age I could break a hip.  Well, maybe not a hip, but something.  At least I would bruise my body and damage my fragile self-esteem.

My day stretches before me in a fairly threatening fashion.  That run to take, post cards to write, a house to clean, a murder mystery to write AND this afternoon auditions for murder mystery actors.  It is a general audition;  I want to develop a pool of actors to draw from as murder mysteries arise to be cast.

Now I feel threatened, because there is a something inside me (my depression?  the aforementioned fragile self-esteem?) strenuously insisting that I CANNOT POSSIBLY do a murder mystery at this time.  I MIGHT be able to write it (low self-esteem aside, I rarely admit to being unable to write something) (yes, yes, there are times when I say I CAN’T write a blog post, but I just mean I can’t write it right now).  But print it out, get a cast, schedule and go to rehearsals…

What am I saying?  Of course I can do all that!  The voices in my head are full of beans!

Talked myself right into that, didn’t I?  Guess I’ll go for my run now.

For local readers interested in theatre, auditions are today, March 18, at 1 p.m. at Ilion Little Theatre,  13 Remington Ave., Ilion, NY.  For more information,  you can visit the theatre’s Facebook page.

 

 

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I Feel Monstrous When I Don’t Write

I like Monstrous Monday.  No matter how down and dull I feel, I almost always feel capable of putting up a few monster pics with my own silly comments.

That sounded so confident.  While I typed those two sentences, a voice inside me was saying, “No, you can’t. You don’t really feel capable of anything.  Furthermore, your comments are dumb, boring, and repetitive.”  I believe it is either my depression or my low self-esteem talking (you wouldn’t think an egotist such as myself could suffer from low self-esteem,  but so it is).  Am I oversharing again?  I had better get on with the monsters.

What I feel like some days.

Ooey-gooey!   I think my favorite part of The Blob is the theme song.  That tango beat!

What I do not seem to have some days.

I like to share The Brain from Planet Arous when I am feeling particularly brainless.  Come to think about it, I have not seen that movie in some time.  I wonder if I have it on DVD or video.

I just loves me some Nosferatu.

I thought I would throw in a picture of my favorite, Nosferatu from the 1922 silent film.

Kafka knew from monsters.

I close with a quote to encourage myself.  Making silly comments about monsters is at least writing something.  Perhaps I can segue into something more literary, or at least more lengthy.  For a Monstrous Monday blog post, I am going to call this sufficient.

 

It Was the Halloween Socks

Sometimes the right outfit can make you feel better about everything.

Until you remember you still have not found the papers you need to bring to rehearsal and you have no idea where else to look.

Luckily, I came up with a few more ideas of where to look and found the papers.  It would really behoove me to become more organized.  However, I’m afraid that in order to accomplish that, I would need to basically tear myself apart and start from scratch, you know, like emptying the refrigerator or dumping everything out of your desk (oh dear, I just had a very unpleasant flashback to fifth grade when a mean teacher did that to me and I cried) (I cried a lot in those days; don’t judge).

Anyways, today is Lame Post Friday, so I’m not too exercised about my blog post. A little exercised, of course.  I always worry my readers will say something along the lines of, “Why am I wasting my time with this trash?  Let’s look at a real blog for a change!”  Or is that my low self-esteem talking?  (Sorry, I’m still recovering from that flashback.  Do you suppose I need therapy?)

But perhaps some of you are waiting to hear about my outfit.  I had to have one, you see, because I have rehearsal for He Laughed Himself to Death, the murder mystery dinner theatre Ilion Little Theatre is presenting at Morningstar Methodist Church in Ilion on April 1.  I don’t need to dress up, but I do need to be dressed (I just gave some folks a bad mental image, but I will not apologize for such a thing) (you know who you are).

As it happens, the outfit isn’t such a much.  I have on leggings, a t-shirt and a flannel shirt.  The t-shirt is large enough to cover my butt and the flannel shirt is even bigger.  I know it is quite the thing to let all your contours be lovingly outlined with your pants these days, but I prefer to be more circumspect.  The flannel shirt is green and black plaid, green for St. Patrick’s Day.  I wanted a green t-shirt as well, in case I had to take the flannel shirt off for a hot flash (which is much less unpleasant than the flashback mentioned earlier, by the way).  I found one from Jeremiah’s Tavern, our old watering hole in Norwood, NY, roughly a hundred years ago.  There is a big mug of beer on it.  How appropriate is that!

For earrings, I put on my spider in a web, because the web is green.  I noticed that earring earlier today and thought I might wear it.  I put it in the ear with two holes and put a hoop in the second hole.  I put an earring made from an Angry Orchard cap in the other ear.  You see, the spider would jump through a hoop to get an Angry Orchard.  Full disclosure:  I have never had an Angry Orchard myself; the earrings were given to me.

I completed my ensemble with Halloween socks: orange with green and purple bats.  I think that final touch was what made me feel good about the whole thing.  Until, you know, the lost paper incident mentioned in the second paragraph.

And now I have found my papers, made my blog post, and may even have time for one more task before rehearsal. Score!  Happy Friday, everyone.

 

Cluttering Up the Blogosphere

I am experiencing a definite Writer’s Block this afternoon.  It is Memorial Day.  I went for a run this morning during which I had some definite thoughts about what I would write in a blog post today.  Now I feel that (a) I am not going to say it right if I try and (b) it probably wasn’t that good of a thing to write about anyways.   But isn’t this always the way with me?  I have nothing wise or profound to say.  I’ll only clutter up the blogosphere.

Now that I say that I begin to have a complete crisis of confidence and think that clutter up the blogosphere is all I do anyways.    Then I say to myself, “Oh, quit fishing for compliments.”  That is kind of what we are doing when we share our crises of confidence.  We seek positive re-enforcement.  Sometimes a voice outside oneself is easier to believe, especially when it is something positive.

Oh dear, this is not the post I started out to write.  I only wanted one of my usual Why I Can’t Write a Post Today posts.  I didn’t mean to get into any of these sticky self-esteem issues.  I’ll stop that right now.  The fact that I hit Publish every day argues that I have some modicum of self-confidence at least.  As for cluttering up the blogosphere (you know, I really like that phrase), I remind myself that there is a lot of room on the internet.  There is room for profundity and there is room for foolishness.  As I always say, go with your strengths.

 

Questionable Musings

Middle-aged Musings Monday is just about what I’m up to today.

Oh, I don’t feel too bad. I’m actually reasonably content with my lot in life today. For one thing, if I can just get through the week, I have a three day weekend. And Monday off makes next week only a four day week. Talk about a win/win!

But to get on with the musings, lately I’ve been alternately musing on and beating myself up over the fact that at this late date I still don’t have my act together. I’ve written posts about this before. It should surprise no one that writing these posts has been no help in the getting together of said act.

I marvel at my continued capacity to Just Not Do Things. For example, daily stretches to minimize my recurring back pain. Every couple of days I think, “Oh yeah, I was going to start doing those stretches every day. That would be a good idea.” Do I sit right down and start stretching? Do I even set a time to plan to do them in the near future? You can guess the answers to these questions.

Oh, but that reminds me of something else I’ve been musing about lately that I find more interesting than my ongoing tribulations: I HATE it when people don’t answer a question but instead make a remark calculated to convince you that you are an utter idiot for asking.

I used to have a rather nasty college professor whose favorite response was to look at you as if nothing could exceed her pity for such stupidity and say, “I think you can answer that question for yourself.”

I can just hear people with higher self-esteem than mine piping up with remarks such as, “As your professor, it was her job to challenge you,” and, “Didn’t you learn more by finding the answer yourself than by her just feeding it to you?” and, of course, “Well, you probably could answer the question for yourself.”

My response to these arguments is to realize that the world is just chock full of people who delight in trying to make me feel even more stupid. Well, you needn’t feel so pleased with yourselves; it isn’t that hard to do.

A favorite answer of army sergeants to questions they don’t feel like answering is, “Well, that’s where common sense comes in.” I always wanted to say, “In other words, you don’t know either,” but you want to watch how snarky you get with people who outrank you.

It is really no wonder that I got into the habit of prefacing questions with, “This is probably a stupid question.” The pat response to that, of course, is, “There are no stupid questions,” or “The only stupid question is the one not asked.” If this is truly the case (and I like to think it is), why do so many people not just answer the damn question?

I had one platoon sergeant who would say, “There are no stupid questions, only stupid people with questions.” This did not offend me, because at that time in my life especially (as, I confess, at many other times), I spent a good portion of every day feeling stupid. Also in his defense, he would usually answer the question.

I wonder if my low self-esteem and perception of myself as stupid have anything to do with my inability to get my act together. This is surely a point to ponder. I will not phrase it in the form of a question, however, because I have a pretty good idea of what some people would say.