it's like she knows

last night i sang nursery rhymes to my dog.  she responded in time with barks and jumps.

some people might think that this is a first sign of my biological clock ticking.  i think it might be that she is the one invisible friend that sees everything that i see.  no, not being a crazy dog lady.  just thinking that any living creature that spends 21 hours of her day with me might have better insight than even i do as to what is going on in my head.

child, dog, or inanimate object: it's good to have someone else looking in the same direction.

last night's conversation

me:  "do you think they know?"

him:  "know what?"

me:  "that they let us move out and into a house in another city?"

him:  "and make major life decisions?"

me:  "yeah."

him:  "no."

me:  "i don't, either."

i think i'm...

it may not be paranoia.  actually, i know it's not.  i'm not worried about something coming to get me-- it's more like a heightened sense of self awareness.  when no one's around. 

it's become increasingly evident to me via this blog how much i think about how much people (or things or government or spiritual entities, real or made up) are looking.  it explains my need to speak out loud when i'm by myself in my house.  it explains why i talk to my dog when we're walking at night.  or day.  or ever. 

another is-she-really-throwing-back-to-her-childhood-and-do-we-have-the-responsibility-of-assessing-her-psychological-stability example:  it started when i was a kid.  maybe it was the self imposed guilt of a hard-working protestant upbringing that conjured the feeling.  maybe it's the hereditary chemical imbalances.  either way, i was acutely aware that everything i did-- alone or not-- was being closely monitored.  i know that the "god is always watching" idea in protestant life is meant as a comfortable fallback to the abandoned, disheartened, and/or neurotic; but i'm pretty sure it backfired.  it didn't seem to matter what i did.  god is always watching.  i started feeling weird about my chronic nose-picking,*** the way i spoke to my stuffed animals, and all those tricky things that start happening at the blossoming of a young flower to a woman (yep, i said it).  i had to ask god to stop, STOP IT-- it was weird.  it persisted.  then the pleading, "hey, i know it's your job, but could you just close your eyes for a minute?"  always watching.

well, hell.  i'll keep up a performance, then.

it only seemed to get worse from there. when i would spend the night at people's houses, i was convinced that they had cameras set up in their bathrooms (always the bathroom-- i don't know why).  at school, being in the post columbine genre, the feeling was relatively justified as the cameras were hung where we could see them.  then there's the bars, supermarkets, workplaces, and my car.  always watching.  maybe not god, but the government sometimes.  sometimes just perverse individuals who i'll never meet but know me forever as the girl who would very modestly preserve her entire identity in ladies' rooms. 

what am i getting at?  how bizarre it is that i'm here.  tonight i am willingly headed to a bar to perform on stage for a group of people.  right now, i am writing into an entity where anyone with a computer or who knows someone with a computer or accesses the public library can see.  maybe it's always worked up to this point.  maybe the someone-is-always-watching has always just been a clear step in the direction of a performer.  or maybe it's the other way around-- like i need to legitimize the feeling that someone is always watching. 

what a strange place we've found ourselves.  you watching me right now, me knowing you are.  and just like always, the self consciousness only seems to go one way. 

unless i just made you feel weird.






***i'm certain in this respect, thank god that god was always watching.  i heard that kids that do this lack sodium in their diet.  this may explain my guilty gluttony at age ten when i started hiding bags of potato chips under my bed and in the closet for after everyone went to bed.  either way, god's watching made me so uncomfortable that i had to stop.  the nose picking, that is.  i may still have a bag of lays stashed in the back of my underwear drawer.

invisible online social networking.

i don't actually think making friends is easy for me. i think that might explain my hesitancy toward online social networking. you wouldn't guess that by the mass of sites i currently have in my possession. i can actually owe that to a few people along the way that insisted that i, simply, needed to be more social. but the collection of friends like pogs to clip on your profile is scary. like the girl scout badges i never earned. proabably because i was never in girl scouts. mostly because i was too nervous to make new friends. thinking about the possibility of having to still makes me a little nauseous. and so my mom didn't (and still doesn't) make me.

every time i (am forced to) add another way for people to see my goings-ons i get sweat on the keyboard-- what if no one wants to be my friend? what if everyone finds out that i'm actually more socially awkward than dj tanner? what if no one gets to find out that i'm this socially awkward because none of them will be my friend? worse, what if they become my friend, sense my insecurity, and leave like a bad blind date before i can even post a overly grateful "thank you for being my friend" on their wall? like how you feel entering the room for a party. no, like how i feel. i assume everyone else in the world is actually capable of having a conversation without perspiring and quietly wishing they were back home under the covers.

it's probably not as bad as i'm making it out to be. but writing to you-- whoever you are-- is maybe begging for a little performance. like when you feel a little bit like big brother or some sicko installed a camera in a public bathroom, so you overreact with extreme modesty and then twirl around as you leave, giving the finger. wrong sentiment. it's like when you're a kid and your siblings don't play with you so you make up an invisible friend that looks and talks just like jesus christ, and you over enunciate and make bigger gestures because, since no one else can see and hear him, he must have a hard time seeing and hearing you as well.

i'm sure all of your siblings played with you. i now also grant that none of your imaginary friends were jesus. weirdly, i have the chance to edit right now and i'm not taking it...

online social networking as a series of invisible friends. there we have it. there's the tiny consolation that keeps me from having to wear my finest party dress every time i post or log on to facebook. invisible friends mean that i take a part in molding who they are, as well. social networks give us all the chance to be an invisible friend to someone else, but also them to us. still scary for me, but much easier than real friends. real friends team up with your siblings and leave you alone with jesus. that's enough for this session.

oh, i'm on twitter now. invisiblegraham is the name. follow me! i mean, if you want...