30 January 2009

Praying Like A Roman?

[Scratching head]

Well what is up with this?

Is Wiggle Wiggle Squirm Squirm trying to persuade me I'm some kind of anti-heroine?

That won't work.

But there seems to be something else in there.

My subconscious is a terrible punster. About 30 years back, I was doing some very boring and repetitive labwork for someone who was equally boringly and repetitively unappreciative, and one evening as I was scrubbing up before going home, I started singing one line from -another- Steely Dan song.

Over and over.

About ten minutes later, I started listening to the words.

I was singing: "I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah! I don't want to do your dirty work no more!"

Whereupon I started roaring with laughter, and decided there and then that it was time for me to make some serious changes in the situation. Had to be, if my own subconscious was sending me such obvious hints.

This Josie thing, now.

The song was popular right around the time I was in that lab singing about the dirty work, and frankly, I was far more innocent then than I am now. To me, then, it symbolized kicking back with my other geeky pals on a Friday or Saturday night, maybe going out and dancing for hours - an inexpensive and harmless diversion, as long as you stuck to soda or coffee after the first two beers, but continued to tip the bartender as if you were still drinking. [It's not the fact that you don't drink that bugs 'em. It's the fact that people who don't drink tend to be lousy tippers. Fix that, and you're welcome anywhere.]

Well... this song is rather obviously not about that. Obviously to me now, anyway.

OK. We can safely assume that I'm not longing to be a teenybopper gang member. But there's something in there, isn't there. Something about a woman - and anger, again - and the anger not being rejected as unwomanly at all. In fact, she's admired for her guts, isn't she? They're gang-type guts, alas, but that sailed right past me back in the day.

Prays like a Roman with her eyes on fire.

Doesn't quite go with the rest of the picture.

Does go with Boudicca.

Yikes... another piece of the puzzle drops into place.

DEFIANCE.

Which, a very respected friend once told me, seemed to be a major source of my strength in the desolate times.

Boudicca. Defiance. Yes. Praying like a Roman with her eyes on fire...

I can see how this could work. The same defiance that drives perseverance and the refusal to give up, during hardship, would be difficult to throttle back in other situations. Yes, I can see this.

Needing defiance as a source of internal strength, but not knowing how to tame it, at certain times.

So: what do I have now?

Tantrums at Trolls - not good. Needs to change.

Defiance as a source of self-preserving energy - definitely good, but needs to be broken to saddle or it can be counterproductive. In fact, learning to tame my Defiance [more: it's actually fairly housebroken, these days, but needs better table manners] is, I suspect, a key piece to learning how not to throw Tantrums at Trolls.

Damn, this is exciting!!!!!!!

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