nicknames

i've had quite a few nicks in my life, mainly due in part to genetics. i blame it on my hair--which is red. i really prefer the across-the-pond "ginger" because it sounds so much nicer, and is actually more true to the color. my hair's not fire-engine red, it's orange. but orange sounds all wrong, and ginger sounds classy.

i think.

anyway, due to my dna, i've been nicked quite a few things--red, rusty, pebbles (yes, from the flinstones) but none of those stuck. i had nicks in high school that weren't particularly fitting--walter, the kgb, kimmy jean--and some in my family that i just can't share (hee hee hee), but it wasn't until college that i had one that was glued on:

kimbo the destroyer.

i don't remember doing anything memorable that had people thinking, she just destroys everything, doesn't she? no one was walking in fear of their lives when i was around.

in the same breath, i've grown into this nickname. i've become something of a destructive force, when it is required of me. now, i don't mean that i'm a wrecking ball, but if the tub needs to be cleaned, i will destroy those bad-ass soap scum molecules. i also have a tendency to make computer systems frizz, time fall in on itself, and baking disasters just reproduce in my prescence.

i mean, cleaning is good destruction, but setting goals in more of a genghis khan sort of way, rather than an, i'm-wandering-in-some-direction way. i just need some focus, and i think genghis was pretty damed focused. maybe i need a different, less bloody role model...nah. (;

i didn't know what i was up against (kim's lack of goals/kim's behavior v. kim) when i was young--i didn't know how to deal with anything, in fact. i still do a lot of things out of fear--the only reason i emailed to find out about credits for my college degree was because, as dan pointed out, i was petrified that my psychologist was going to be furious with me if i didn't. "you're not paying her to be angry at you," he said.

the same thing goes for disappointment--i despise letting people down. but for some reason, the people i care about the most--family and friends--i let down often, by dropping the ball or just not completing things that they see as normal.

normal is a setting on my rice steamer. normal is something that means "i vacuumed my house last week." normal is boring, normal is just plain old unrealistic for someone who answers to kimbo the destroyer.

yeah, maybe it's "normal" for most people to have finished their degree, gotten married, bought a house and/or had 2.3 kids by the time they're my age. all i know is that my life has been normal for me, and that's all you can ask.

part of me is learning to like the fact that i'm just ME--perpetually late and perpetually giggly, wandering, distracted by shiny objects and pretty colors. part of me is trying very hard to see that the place i'm in is the place i need to be--living, laughing, crying, surrounded by a group of eclectic friends, with nicknames that are just as fitting and strange as mine--bam-bam, lunchmeat, corpse, spoon, terror--to name a few. i need to step back and see me experiencing my version of mundane, not anyone else's.

i am at such a different spot than i was in 2nd grade when my math teacher told my mother that i could be such a good student if i just applied myself...but i just keep thinking of that song, not sure who sings it, but the line goes something like "i'm looking at the world/from the bottom of a well." doesn't mean i can't do something while i'm at the bottom of the well, now, does it? perhaps i don't have everything i need to get out of the well right now. but perhaps what i need is something that no one else can give me--the power to change my attitude, and become attuned to the vagrant thinking pattern that i've lived but not been aware of for my entire life.

my mantra for today, and what i'm going to have to keep trying to do, is what dan is trying to do every day too--be constructive with what i have--my relationships, my health, my goals, my patterns. there are so many things about which i can be constructive, where previously i've been destructive.

because i can see the destructive tendencies that i have--they're not always present for others to view, but i can see them. most of them are thought processes, but some are actual habits that affect others. it's harder work than i've ever done, and i'm undermining my own progress if i don't actually attack what i see as a destructive pattern, in the manner of mr. khan himself.

there's going to be setbacks; i can see that, because i've experienced them, and i can see dan experiencing them too, in a much different manner, because he's up against a much different version of reality than i am. again, i need to see my version of mundane, not dan's, not anyone else's, but it helps to know that others are trying to be constructive with their tendencies, too, that i'm not all alone on this path of self-exploration.

different song, by stabbing westward: "i cannot save you/i can barely save myself."

please note: this is not, i repeat...NOT an invite to be re-nicked kimbo the constructor. cause that just ain't happening. i don't want to sound like a building block or any kind of union laborer.

anyhow, the positivity of this blog is nearly clogging my arteries. i better get to work in the world of apathy, to counterbalance this preachy attitude. (;

(; cheers, k