Last week Jane and I—from our respective homes 2,344 miles apart—sat in on a webinar featuring the blogger/writing coach Lauren Sapala that was all about transforming the “dragons” that keep you from your best writing and your best life. I’m a big fan of Lauren’s work with personality type and writing styles. (She has a description of what it is like to be an INFP writer—which is what I am—that brought me to tears because it so aptly explained the soup that my brain is when it’s trying to focus on a single idea to write about or trying to dish servings of that word soup up into appropriately sized and non-melty containers. It’s a mess here in my head, people. A real mess.) This webinar was exactly what I needed as I try to get myself out of what I can no longer call a “writing slump” as it is clearly now more of a lifestyle choice.

Can you see the slides? I can’t see the slides, I’d text. Jane would text back, There are slides? Where are the slides? My screen is just blue. It was nice being there—wherever “there” was—with Jane. One of the things I will never stop missing as I age is the closeness of friends from my youth. I miss being in each others’ space. I miss staying up too late and talking about love and life. I miss the dramas that now just seem ridiculous. So these moments of connection with old friends—even if they are now more often electronic—delight me.

Texting Jane during webinar lulls also gave me flashbacks to our shared college computer programming class, for which we were both ill prepared and bad performers primarily because our class notes were comprised of notes to each other about everything but class. It was also nice to have her along for the ride because over the years we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time discussing our own and each others’ personality types and quirks in epic emails to each other. We are ever hopeful that we’ll make some life-transforming discovery at some point. Instead we make small ones that we adopt for a time and then move on when we are not magically transformed.

Since I’d read nothing ahead of time about this theory of dragon-based writing blocks, I had some preconceived ideas about those that might be my most likely foes.

Dragons I expected to have:

 

• Dragon of Procrastination
• Dragon of Disorganization
• Dragon of Obsession about Political Facebook Posts
• Dragon of Netflix Binging
• Dragon of Unnecessary Reorganizing (because having my sweaters and Fiestaware plates in ROYGBIV order sometimes seems more important than writing)
• Dragon of Spending Blocked-Off Writing Time On Epic Emails to Jane

 

Sadly, these were not the options presented. Sadly, it was clear from Lauren’s description that I had not one but four and a half of her dragons of writing blockage and none of them were all that funny or flattering.

Dragons I do have:

 

• Stubbornness
• Impatience
• Self-destruction (more of a historical dragon for me, so I give it a half point)
• Self-deprecation
• Arrogance

 

I’ve read a lot of medieval literature and a fair amount of fantasy, and by those standards, having four-and-a-half dragons to do battle with is a considerable challenge. Possibly one I’m not equipped for. Plus, I’m still struggling with the notion that I can be both self-deprecating and arrogant.

It’s that last one that I scored the highest on that I’m struggling with most. Don’t arrogant people walk around all day thinking they are the cat’s pajamas? I’ve never felt like I was the cat’s anything. I avoid mirrors like a vampire. I assume other writers are more prolific and more deserving than I am. The few days a year I dare to wear this huge, artsy ring that is made from a geode, I get embarrassed almost immediately and so turn the glittery bit toward my palm so no can see it and think I’m getting above my raising.

I’ve spent several days since the webinar considering ways I might act superior. I DO think severe bangs are a bad choice for everyone. I DO NOT like it when people make Scottish terriers wear clothes. I DO believe I’m right in my criticism of ¾ of modern art. I feel strongly that you should use the Oxford comma. But is that arrogance or just some random opinions I’ve cobbled together over the years?

Regardless, Lauren Sapala’s webinar was good and her advice seemed sound, and I recommend you read her book if you are an NF and I recommend you read her blog if you are a writer of any Myers-Briggs type.

She offered some sound suggestions about vanquishing dragons and for that big ugly one at the end of my list, one of the best ways to beat down the arrogance is to recount your embarrassments from the past and just sit with that embarrassment instead of making excuses for why you shouldn’t feel bad or why it was really the fault of someone else that you made a fool of yourself.

In the interest of my healing and growth, I offer you a buffet of recent mortifications.

• At the beginning of the month, Leibovitz came out to celebrate her own Birthday of Some Significance. While Z and I were waiting for her at the airport—where there had recently been some impromptu protests about the immigration ban—a friendly fellow with a cardboard sign came up to ask us if we knew where the protest was. I engaged him in conversation as he stood there shifting his giant “Jesus is Weed” sign from one hand to the other. I was unsure why that particular sign seemed important at a potential anti-immigration protest in a state that legalized marijuana a few years ago, but still, who was I to judge? (See? Totally not arrogant! Totally accepting of differences!) I asked a few questions and clucked and nodded and smiled as he talked. And talked. And then I heard this very tiny voice coming out of the side of Z’s mostly closed mouth and it said, Stop talking to him. He’s crazy. And then I realized that of course Z was right. In the span of our conversation this guy had told me about how “they” had jammed his cell phone and that’s why he couldn’t find the protest. The same “they” had also made it impossible for him to find silver prices on the web because he was investing his non-weed money in the metal market because he didn’t trust the dollar. “They” were doing some other things to him that didn’t make sense to me but clearly agitated him. For the duration of our conversation nothing he had said—including his protest sign—made sense and yet I had failed to notice that he was either delusional, under the influence, or both.

• Leibovitz and I took off the next day for an overnight on Whidbey Island so she could wake up on her birthday to beautiful views. On the way, we stopped for a long walk on Double Bluff Beach. The wind was cold, so I jammed my knitted Scottie cap down over my ears, stuffed my hands into my favorite stripey fingerless gloves from the Sundance catalog, and meandered with her along the beach. A pair of eagles soared and cried above us. It was a perfect afternoon and I was so glad to be with her, talking about life.

The next afternoon—after a leisurely Leibovitz Birthday morning in which we ate hummus and olives for breakfast because we didn’t want to leave the Puget-Sound-Snowcapped-Cascade-Mountain view to get real breakfast—I discovered that one of my favorite stripey gloves from the Sundance catalog was missing. I searched everywhere while growling my disappointment. The gloves were a gift and because I can neither wiggle myself into the gorgeous non-Midwestern-sized-woman clothes Sundance sells nor afford the home furnishings and other doo-dads they offer, these gloves were my one touchstone to the life I fantasize about living. That is, a life of a Sundance catalog model living a Sundance catalog fantasy life. A life wherein I am thinner and younger and have fabulous sun-bleached hair and look like I know Important Truths while I stand around in my textured Light and Love cardigan, my gauzy Mystic Meadow skirt, and some distressed cowboy boots that are new but look well worn, all as I stare into the distance where, no doubt, there is a palomino pony beyond the horizon that I have either just ridden or am about to ride.

I don’t even know why I think I’d be happy in this life: I don’t like the outdoors much, horses make me nervous, I’m not a big fan of the American Southwest, and I’m pretty sure these catalog women are aficionados of salads and country music, neither of which appeal to me. But still, it’s a dream of mine and it was lost with my glove.

• Me telling you the catalog fantasy isn’t even the most embarrassing part of that story. The embarrassing part is that I returned to every shop and restaurant we’d been to the day before as well as the Langley City Hall asking if anyone had seen my missing glove. I’d hold up the one still in my possession so the person could see how truly special it was and I why I wanted the pair reunited. I left my name and phone number with a city official as if someone would turn in one lonesome glove. I sighed a lot. And then when Leibovitz and I got back to the city and headed out to dinner with Z, I put on a coat that I had not even taken to the island and there in the pocket was the errant stripey glove. I’d only ever had one glove while on Whidbey Island; its partner had always been safely back in Seattle waiting for me. Clearly, I was delusional as I traipsed the streets of Langley looking for it as was the guy with the Jesus is Weed protest sign.

• An added embarrassment to the above story is that for a full two days afterward I insisted to Z that I HAD had the errant glove on the island, that I remembered putting it on on Double Bluff Beach, and therefore, surely the fairies were messing with me by stealing it, flying it to First Hill, and stuffing it into the pocket of my coat. My Irish coat that I bought in Ireland. (Hence fairies.) Why would I do this? I am mostly a rational person, yet I firmly believed for two days that the only explanation involved the mythical beings of Éire stealing my belongings and then returning them.

• Additional embarrassment and possible evidence of real arrogance: I see from Spellcheck that “stripey” should be spelled “stripy” but I don’t like the way that looks like “strippy” (also not a word) and thus I am refusing to use standard spelling.

• Twice I broke into spontaneous dance that embarrassed me, the dancer, and Z, the witness.

• I had an entire conversation with a server at a restaurant, explaining how I needed my burger to be prepared and I was smiling and joking so he would maybe not spit in my food since I had a special order. When he walked away, Z said, “Honey, you need to wipe your nose.”

• I discovered I’ve been using hoi polloi wrong my entire life. I thought the hoi polloi were the arrogant rich people (who probably order things out of the Sundance Catalog regularly) who didn’t want to interact with common folk.

• Z was lugging two heavy bags of groceries home while I was in charge of the umbrella and the key. When we got to the building door, a tenant was coming in with her bicycle and I was so busy letting her know that I was friendly and helpful in a door-holding kind of way that I slammed the interior door in Z’s face, thus trapping him in the vestibule with the groceries. I was halfway down the hall with a big smile on my face for being so helpful when I heard him saying through the door, “Baby? Baby? Can you get the door.” (Z can call me Baby because he says it ironically. Don’t judge me for allowing it.) And then when I let him in he couldn’t stop teasing me about how I was so enamored with the idea of being a helpful neighbor that I’d completely forgotten him.

• I sent a watercolor card of a scene from Seattle painted by a local artist to Jane and family for the loss of a beloved pet only to discover that the artist had chosen to include a graffiti-covered wall in the background on which was scrawled, “Only the strong survive.”

• And then there is Tuesday. Last week our building manager told us that she’d be making appointments to inspect apartments to check for things that needed fixing. I was glad she’d given us the heads up because I’m not that strong a housekeeper. Z and I are clean, but we are a messy people. Z is not without sin, but I am admittedly the more messy, so there are stacks of books toppling over, at least three different notebooks going, power cords tangled by the sofa, clothes I put on and shed as my personal temperature changes draped haphazardly on furniture, etc. So it’s always good for me to know ahead of time when someone will be coming to the house so I can race around throwing things into tote bags, shoving them behind a door, and thus offering the illusion of order. (Maybe this is arrogance? Not letting guests see that we live like pigs?)

Because of a three-day weekend and some projects that were started and left unfinished, some laundry done but only half put away, some “delicates” drying from hangers hooked over doorsills, some cooking experiments of Z’s that I enjoyed eating but had yet to clean up after, some wilted flowers from Leibovitz that were now neither beautiful enough to warrant display nor dead enough to warrant the trash, some bonus books to our already teetering stacks…because of all these things the house was not looking its best. Also, there was yet another mouse sighting and so Z had set up his Mouse Wall to encourage the mouse to stay in the kitchen and not skitter into our bedroom. (And no, Z is not a fool. He knows the mouse can scale the wall but he does it out of love for me so I will feel safer while sleeping, which is really all border walls do: make fearful people feel safer even though fences and walls often don’t achieve those goals and can be costly and unattractive.) Still, I thought, as I trundled off to bed, it will be easy enough to pick up in the morning while I wait to hear when the inspection will be.

Recently, I have been on an insomnia bender possibly caused by anxiety about a possible teaching gig after a three-and-a-half-year classroom hiatus, but more likely caused by some late night weed-free-but-highly-caffeinated brownies I’ve ingested. At 4:30, I was still not asleep, so I got up and took a sleeping pill. In the morning, I heard Z talking to the building manager in the hallway and I felt a little cross that they weren’t having the appointment-making conversation in her very tidy office downstairs instead of within my earshot so early in the morning. I sighed, settled in for more sleep, and then the bedroom door flew open and the light came on. I expected to see Z, but instead, it was the building manager and the handyman.

“OH NO!” she said. “YOU’RE HERE! I KNOCKED. YOU DIDN’T ANSWER.”

She and Z had not been chatting in the hallway. She and the handy man had been in the apartment checking our pipes for leaks and our smoke detectors for batteries. Z had been at work for hours. She skittered out of the house faster than the mouse skitters back under the refrigerator when Z swats at it with rolled up detritus from our coffee table.

To say I was mortified to be found in bed by someone other than Z at a 11 a.m.—to have been so zonked out from a sleeping pill that I didn’t hear the knock at the door or people in my home, to have been seen in my own personal bed by a woman I have heretofore only had benign conversations with about mouse infestations and her Yorkshire terrier—is an understatement.

This is the sort of thing that NEVER happens to those Sundance Catalog women.

I spent the rest of the day hiding in the apartment with the chain on the door and the curtains drawn. I wrote an Email of Agony to Jane to tell her of my shame. Jane’s house is always lovely. She would never have a mouse wall in a doorway or last night’s dishes in the sink. Jane would never be in bed at 11 a.m. But Jane is a good person and I knew she would not point this out to me, even if she did believe making me feel more embarrassed might help on the road to my ultimate self-improvement.

This is ONE WEEK’s worth of embarrassments. I can’t say I feel particularly good or unburdened about having told you any of these stories. But if I did have a Dragon of Arrogance? That thing has been smote.