The Bouche

Why MacFrugal's was changed to Big Lots I'll never understand. A better name might be Ugliest Available Everything. I didn't know I had a certain taste in alarm clocks, laundry hampers and slop rags until I went into this store and found all of their offerings to be unsuitable/hideous. I wanted to take a picture of the object that best symbolized what I felt to be the prevailing aesthetic at Big Lots-- an oversized, clear plastic, lumpy, guitar-shaped container filled with neon orange cheddar cheese flavored popcorn with a highly stylized airbrush rendering of Elvis on the front-- but I wanted to leave more.

This was not my first brush with Big Lots, nor will it be my last, as my memory will lapse and I'll go there to look for an affordable coffee grinder again someday. In 7th Grade, Kim Danko's mom took us to MacFrugal's and we bought a plastic comb with orange wax heaped onto the base. The idea was that you drag it through your hair and it leaves an "edgy" looking orange streak that I'm sure would have looked really great offset by about 12 butterfly clips, a zig-zag part, and body glitter (the chunky kind). What in fact happened was the wax ripped our hair out and so what we had then was a plastic comb with clumps of hair embedded in a wax chunk. We called it The Bouche and tormented each other with it on weekends. I'd like to think that this relic of our tween years is buried deep in a Caboodle filled with Wet n' Wild nail polishes, ready to ruin some upholstery or melt in the backseat of a minivan when the mood takes us.

The California Lifestyle

...every religious man places himself at the Center of the World and by the same token at the very source of absolute reality, as close as possible to the opening that ensures him communication with the gods. But since to settle somewhere, to inhabit a space, is equivalent to repeating the cosmogony and hence to imitating the work of the gods, it follows that, for religious man, every existential decision to situate himself in space in fact constitutes a religious decision.
-Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and The Prophane

I used to refer often to what I called the California Lifestyle. Loosely defined, it means doing whatever I want to do, while also having peace of mind, enough to eat, and proximity to nature. To me, it is akin to the feeling of first falling in love-- a state of constant ecstasy. I always felt that this could not be achieved anywhere but in California. Of course, any person with the most cursory knowledge of psychology will tell you that it can't be achieved anywhere or at all. Still, I maintain that it is even more impossible outside of California, where your chances of 75 degree sunny days, season notwithstanding, become very slim.

Version one of the California Lifestyle was something I fabricated in high school, and thanks to a blossoming obsession with Richard Brautigan, it was extremely San Francisco-centric. I had probably been to San Francisco a total of three times, so it lent itself beautifully to fictionalization and idealization. In this version, I was making a living as a writer, cataloging many charmingly absurd occurrences and thoughts like so many Brautigan narrators, and living on California Street in San Francisco. I had it in my head that if I lived on California Street I would have reached the apex of what it means to be a Californian in terms of the sacred California Lifestyle, and a greater understanding of humanity and all the cosmos would be revealed to me from the hallowed halls of some oddly affordable, sunlit bay-windowed Queen Anne.

I spend 5 days a week on California Street, working in that Victorian. As the 24 bus labors up the hills, I see that the gods of California have eluded me again, having fled with the California Lifestyle to a cabin in Bolinas... or something.

Totally the Same Only Writ Large

During a bout of rare lucidity attained through what I'm guessing was stroopwaffle consumption, I pondered the course of events from May to September. I left my life as an underpaid dental office employee dwelling in a house full of dudes, only to arrive...at another dental office, another house full of dudes. Granted, now I am not so underpaid, as some of the dentists I work for are high profile in some surprising ways (see video below) and, naturally, I live with different dudes. Still, it seems that my daring attempt at changing the course of my life was, in fact, a complete circle and, in essence, a failure.

Some positive improvements:
-great AM oldies radio station... all the hits in mono!
-less financially destitute
-my boyfriend likes it here
-I think this time around we're going to actually get a desk instead of just talking about how we wished we had one

I hope to learn soon whatever lesson was intended in repeating my previous dissatisfying mediocrity so that my life won't become an unfunny Groundhog Day knockoff with my unflattering harem pants acting as a poor substitute for Bill Murray's charisma.

The Dreamgirls and Conversely, Me

I saw a pair of dreamgirls the the other day. Both of them were thin, probably about 27, with slightly dirty, messy strawberry blonde hair pulled up into top knots, with large, shiny geometric bright hammered brass and wood earrings. They each had one or two small hair clips with abalone inlay embedded in their hairdos, and they each had on dark blue denim skinny pants that looked impeccable and expensive. The one that was slightly prettier with extremely clear skin had on a gauzy top with different pink shades in a painterly design, with a similarly gauzy bright yellow scarf coiled around her neck like attractive plumage. The other girl was slightly less pretty but made up for it with tasteful ornamentation-- two-toned oxfords instead of plain brown, one extra bead in the earrings, a few extra patterned textiles sewn into the hems of her garments. Her cozy looking boxy sweater was the exact same shade of yellow as the first girl's scarf. They sat at Philz chatting for awhile before mounting two bikes that were twins in their nondescriptness and rode slowly down Folsom, best friends.

Everywhere in San Francisco there are dreamgirls, with coils of ropey hair up in top knots or cascading down alpaca-sweatered shoulders, with long legs emerging from perfectly worn leather shoes, striding gazelle-like down these chewing-gum and spit cobbled streets towards lives of almost yogic aesthetic harmony, or, at least, towards bay window apartments filled with healthy succulents and sun-faded tapestries and Ouspensky books. Do they even suspect that they are the dreamgirls?

Of course I'm wildly insecure and I'm going through one of my dumpy, androgynous (but not in a provocative way) phases in my 13 year long adolescence, replete with a growing-out short haircut that now resembles a toupee designed to mimic the look of your dad in 1986 and pants that are in all ways circumspect, so the constant presence of attractive people leads me to make dangerous and foolish self-comparisons. Comparing, as I have learned from years and years of doing it, is synonymous with coming up short, and try as I may to learn that my self esteem and acceptance has to come from within it is proving to be a very hard lesson to learn.

It is a lesson I should have learned when I watched that modernized ugly duckling cartoon when I was faking sick at age 7. Nickelodeon took the character outside the traditional world of Hans Christian Andersen, where the animated duckling winds up on an adventure with a fast-talking wolf or fox in some kind of traveling medicine show/biker gang atmosphere. I don't remember if he even changes into a swan in the end. the point of the movie, from what I could gather at that tender age, was not an eventual payoff of finally attaining physical beauty after years of painful ugliness, but the journey towards self value. At an early point in the film (when our hero is yet to be convinced of his self worth) at the fox's suggestion the duckling sings in a plaintive tone, "I like myself, I like myself. I want you to know, I like myself." So I feel like this stage of self development for me is very much akin to the cartoon duck's at that point-- I'm kind of half-heartedly muttering self affirmations while still secretly waiting for that beautiful swan payoff that never comes! But hell, if that duck can learn to like himself (at least I think that's what happens) then there's no reason I can't!

Look out SF, I'm going to start leaving the house soon!

The Call of Nature and The Call to Serve

Back in 2005 I needed badly to use a restroom on a day trip to San Francisco. Naive as I was, I thought nothing of using one of those cylindrical, self-cleaning public pay toilets downtown. Upon inserting my quarter, such unspeakable horrors of humanity greeted my stunned senses that I ran out, unrelieved, and refused to even speak of what I saw for years afterwards. Let's just say the self-cleaning mechanism malfunctioned and either one person or many people and one blind, violently ill bear retaliated by leaving steaming mounds of liquefied fecal matter in all kinds of places in addition to the overflowing toilet, and that's the least troubling thing I noticed.

More recently, a lengthy battle with moderate constipation (and an unhealthy desire to talk about it constantly to whoever will listen) made finding comfortable public places to poop an issue of utmost importance (and a refreshingly frank icebreaker!)

With these distressing incidences now behind me, I want to unveil my latest (only known recorded) effort at helping my fellow man: a google map of places in San Francisco with comfortable public restrooms, conducive to "letting it rip." Consider this an open call for all you folks who are familiar with the area to contribute your favorite places to the map. Maybe if people had better knowledge of the adequate restrooms available, they'd be less inclined to defecate on every square inch of sidewalk in my neighborhood. Wishful thinking?

How I Wound Up in San Francisco

I am guilty of integrating the lyrics to popular oldies into an already illogical philosophy of life where anything "romantic" takes precedence over everything else, including my own best interest. A pivotal song has been Glady's Knight and the Pipps' "Midnight Train to Georgia," specifically the line, "I'd rather live in his world than be without him in mine," which I recognized immediately as an applicable truth, and has formed the deranged nucleus of every decision I've made for the last 6 months or more.

Little Cable Cars Or Whatever

Have you ever run away from your old life in pursuit of something more satisfying, only to find that your new life is comprised totally of sleeping in uncomfortable places, trying to dodge disgusting blobs of god knows what on every conceivable surface, and trying to arrange free rides back to where you used to live... or free rides in general?

I am trying to learn to like San Francisco, because I live there now. It has been difficult, as it feels like I've arrived here less by choice and more because it was the only thing available. Also, everyone is either a really hot young woman or a sinister troll covered in boils, and I can't tell which is more personally threatening to my sense of security. Perhaps eventually I'll see the avoidance of human fecal matter every three feet on the sidewalk as a fun strategy game, and remember the romantic regard in which I held San Francisco for years before I knew how gross it is.

I plan to make future posts citing examples of ways I've learned to like it here. So far, I really like Philz Coffee, as it was instrumental in ending that month long bout of constipation that many of you know of via facebook. Stay tuned for more poor taste and big city adventures!

Glamour, Romance and Food Stamps

I understand people are lonely. I understand the desire to reach out to other people and pull them into your life. What I don't understand is trying to pick up on girls in line for government aid.

I spent 5 hours in line at the Sacramento County Office not long ago, waiting to receive food stamp benefits. During this time I received, in addition to $200 dollars monthly, unwarranted male attention. I was looking kind of raggedy and asexual and feeling kind of ashamed and financially downtrodden, and was expecting everyone else to feel the same. Evidently, having no money, job, or prospects whatsoever does not diminish confidence or deter the spirit of sexual adventure for some. After being aggressively ogled by a young man who resembled in every way a real-life Bobby Hill, I finally walked outside to discourage him from taking a suddenly empty seat within gripping distance of my bare thigh. I was gone no longer than 30 seconds when Bobby Hill appears, obviously having followed me. "I don't blame you for leaving," he said. "What?" I stammered. Could it be that he knew how creepy he has been and is coming out to apologize? "I said I don't blame you for leaving to stretch your legs," he said, practically right on top of me. Then, without any perfunctory getting-to-know-you smalltalk, he offers to give me a ride home. I declined politely but vehemently, imagining him making 3am slow drives past my address, or worse! While I pretended to be fascinated by anything that took my gaze miles away from the spot he was standing, he tried to charm me by referencing times he "blew stuff up" in the army, probably in hopes that I would get some sense of the roiling testosterone and rugged masculinity seething just below the surface, the surface being, of course, shaved completely bald and very, very doughy. Fortunately, my name was called over the loudspeaker before we could get to know each other any better. Following shortly afterword, a man maybe 20 years my senior with speech patterns reminiscent of drug use asked me if I wanted to go grab a beer when the process was over. I wondered, briefly, where he got his beer money, realized I was probably going to end up buying it, and declined the offer.

So ladies, take a lesson from ol' Mama Rach. Don't feel ashamed if you are down on your luck and in between jobs. If you are lacking in confidence, just march on down to your local human services department. Even if you aren't eligible for aid, if you look even 3% better than an obese person, gender indeterminate, wearing a stained t-shirt of Tweety Bird looking pissed in a backwards cap you could get hit on a ton!

Scrap Everything Pt. 3

In addendum to a previous post: The vacation is over.
I have foggy memories of leisurely walks in Palo Alto, musing over Ritter Sport varietals-- did it really happen, or was it just a dream? We've spent what feels like a long time garnering experience for a lifestyle guide entitled Exhausting Your Resources and Wearing Out Your Welcome. Some noteable chapters include, Chapter 1: Is Your Mom Cool With Us Staying Here?

We've bounced from Palo Alto to Santa Cruz to San Francisco to Davis and now, back to Sacramento, thanks in part to the kindness of friends and family, and to our own inability to make any plans come to fruition. These times have not been without fun, but were tinged all the same with stress over not knowing where to land. Once we finally decided, OK, we're going to Portland, a comic misunderstanding with our ride left us without a ride at all. I hesitate to write what our next tentative course might be, as we seem to be at high risk for jinxing. There have been only two constants in our lives, and they are the World Cup and the film and television career of Kyle MacLachlan. These minor consistencies are comforting in this uncertain time.

Ritter Sport: New Flavor Suggestions

Ritter Sport is one of my favorite chocolates, conveniently located in the impulse buy section at fine grocery stores. They have the expected fillings, as well as some more exotic choices, such as Yogurt or Cornflakes. As I snacked merrily away on the Ritter Sport Milk Chocolate with Butter Biscuit this afternoon, I thought of some other flavors, sure to be popular:


FRENCH'S FRENCH FRIED ONIONS- familiar crunchy pizazz is not limited to casseroles anymore!

BEEF N CHEDDAR/SLOPPY JOES- the savory, stick to your ribs chocolates for men that eat like a meal

JALAPENOS- the chocolate with sabor from south of the border.

MACADAMIA CRUSTED HALIBUT- Your evening plans for a fine dining experience at Chili's with the gals fell through, but you can still savor this "catch of the day" chocolate

BENADRYL- Who says warding off allergy symptoms can't be decadent and indulgent? May cause drowsiness, definitely causes a flavor sensation.

ACTUAL BEES- "live from the hive"and enrobed in milk chocolate, for a sweet "sting" that stays with you. Pairs well with the Benadryl Ritter Sport.

Scrap Everything Pt 2: Done!

Admittedly, we didn't really scrap everything so much as stuff it into our parents' houses as the prologue to a novel entitled Your Worst Nightmare, Mom and Dad! Chapter one details the packing of several pounds of beans, musical equipment, and a suitcase containing some ill-fitting 90s jeans (not the best decision) and big silly shirts into the trunk of our friend Yan's Prius heading towards an unoccupied condo in Palo Alto. Since then it's been endless hikes,trips to the beach (Half Moon Bay, Bolinas), poolside lounging, playing music, and of course, bean-based cuisine. Gone is that familiar anxiety-based stomachache-- it has been replaced entirely by beans. Had I known that quitting my job would be so luxurious, I would have quit long ago.

Up next: planning our next move for when the vacation's over/we run out of money.

Finding Ourselves in The Great American West (Broke and Homeless!)

"The old wage-slave mentality of renting ourselves to our jobs for eight hours a day to cover the essentials of life is giving way to the awareness that work is an integral part of our lives. Therefore the quality of our lives and the quality of our work-time are one in the same." -Michael Phillips

I instantly regarded the above quote, read late one night from one of the many new agey self help books that surround me like fortress of tranquilizing weird, as a message of approval from the spirit in the sky for my new life plan. I use the word plan without much regard for its meaning, for as I write this, the "plan" may or may not involve using the deposit money to procure a Vanagon with a working stove and drive it to destination TBD, and may or may not change with our next few gulps of beer. Three things are for certain: We have quit our jobs, our last day in the house is May 31st, and James has purchased a pound of beans and a pound of coffee to get us through the uncertain lean times ahead.

recommended reading: Chop Wood, Carry Water: A Guide to Finding Spiritual Fulfillment in Everday Life,

Where "Freedom" Means "Self Imprisonment" and "Total Enclosure"

My favorite misheard lyrics are from Madonna's Get Into The Groove. "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free/ At night I lock the door where no one else can see," becomes, to me, "All I ever wanted was to feel this free/At night, I lock the door and throw away the key."

from 12/20/06

I want someone to carefully preserve their memory of me, to press it carefully between pages and then hold it, thin and fragile between their fingers and ache for me.

Scrap Everything

I just finished a journal. A quick reread betrayed the true identity of what I egotistically think of as my ongoing memoir to be a crude roster of unfinished (unstarted?!) projects and half-baked schemes to get out of my job/town, some of which aren't even mine, all of which wither in infancy. It is also a chronicle of the life and times of My Boyfriend-- sometimes like a detailed report on the habits of a rare and fascinating bird, and sometimes a book of devotional hymns. Those many journals, those glorified shopping lists and unreadable half remembered dreams, might never be protected by some literary society devoted to exclusive study and preservation of my "works," and this kills me a little. I am terrified of the ordinariness of my life. I find myself eating a lot of couscous and watching Curb Your Enthusiasm on the internet and longing for something more-- it is hard for me to live these down times in between great acts of instability and profound tenderness, where I'm just riding my bike to the grocery store and doing laundry. I don't know how I got to this point where I feel like any time I'm not experiencing the emotional equivalent of getting shot out of a cannon is merely biding my time, but being immersed in a society of constant thrill-seeking doesn't really help. I think it's time to scrap everything and cool it out in some oceanside retreat, fill those journals with crummy drawings of dolphins with "om" coming out of a speech bubbles and snacks that I like and just forget it.

Excitement

Having left my yoga-coma only to realize that what I'm wearing is suggestive of mental illness, I'm following directions on How To Make A Dinner printed on the back of a jar of curry (had to get detailed reminders from 2 people on how to make rice) while alone in the house blasting the local R&B and Old Skool station. Later, I'll walk to a party and hope that accumulated sips of other people's drinks will create a slight buzz. I will desperately search the room for some chatchky or houseplant to make disparaging remarks about in hopes that a better conversation will follow or that a younger girl will make a scene and alleviate the need for conversation. This is about as much excitement as I can stand, or afford on my paycheck.

This blurb was going to be a Facebook "status update" and the last sentence was going to be "See ya then!" but it was too long. I have pasted it here, against better judgment, to give you, gentle reader, a glimpse into an oft-repeated scene in the gradual encroachment of The Late 20s onto an unprepared host.

Unused Titles for Motivational Speaking Tapes-- FREE GIVEAWAY

Tonight I spent some time making a tape for an extended car ride I plan on taking instead of going out (trend emerging?) I taped over what I'm guessing was a motivational tape with financial improvements being the main focus called Stalking Your Goals by Zig Ziglar. I was inspired to write some titles in the same style. They are categorized by motivational effectiveness where GOOD means aggressive and BAD means anything else.

GOOD
Attacking Your Goals
Viciously Mauling Your Goals
Sneaking Up On and Ambushing Your Goals
Gaining A Stranglehold on Your Goals
Kidnapping Your Goals and Holding Them For Ransom
Tapping Your Goals' Phone
Breathing Down The Necks of Your Goals
Making Harsh Accusations Towards Your Goals
Holding Your Goal's Face Just Inches From a Pile of Dog Shit While Calling It A Fag


BAD
Gently Nibbling On The End of Your Goals
Coyly Flirting With Your Goals
Savoring Your Goals
Do It Tomorrow: Thinking About Making A List of Your Goals
Enrobe Your Goals in Luscious Milk Chocolate
Wear Your Goals On Your Sleeve
Winking From Across the Bar at Your Goals
Remembering Dreams You Had About Your Goals
Leaving Your Goals Notes Around The House
Sexual Astrology of Your Goals
Aiming Low: Goal Diminishment
Your Husband's Goals and How You Can Help Him Achieve Them

summer of?

Age ten early summer vh1 on the tube in the den sea monkeys half-glowing in their specialized aquarium underneath the green shade of the office lamp (the kind bookkeepers and card players used in movies from and about the 1940s) varying itchy shades of tan upholstery scratching bare legs on the couch eating ice cream sandwiches (the neopolitan kind, chocolate part eaten first to get it out of the way, strawberry best for last) drawing in a mead notebook with a sticker of a bear wearing braces on the front. What was I even doing then and why did I have to perform that ritual there nightly? It seemed so beautiful and rapturous, like once I found something in that combination of objects, sounds and circumstances and if I did it over and over I could unlock it again and slip inside. I was acutely aware of childhood's impending end but also aware of lingering childhood. I occupied a liminal space throttling the gulf between and it was nostalgia and hope for the future mixed.

I've tried to write about being ten that summer at so many different stages of my life, with fluctuating degrees of understanding, never fully achieving the desired results-- to feel that way again.

August 13, 2009

Valentine Options

Option 1: Go out dancing; it's the weekly funk night all your friends love!

Option 2: Stay home and draft end times manifesto in huge sprawling print until all wits are lost, most of the pages just say "MY VAIN GLORY" on them and are soaked at the corners with saliva, then gripping them in hot fists and flying down the street until falling down at the feet of a middle aged woman walking a pug hybrid. I view her unflappable serenity as proof that she will soon be diefied, so I sputter "Please! The answers!" as fluid oozes from all my facial orifices.

I've put on my dancing shoes but my plans are still very much up in the air.

2/18/10 edit:
totally did both.

Pure Emotion Translated Through Technology/ Check Out This Animation

Long before my unwavering devotion was ever legitimized by actual dating, I created this tumblr as a frenetic ADHD internet love poem to my boyfriend. My love for him is best characterized as adolescentobsessional, allowing me to sustain that early creepiness many months into a real relationship, propelling me past the laundry, dishes and dollars follies into which so many romantic feelings become mired . He is a partner/friend and also a celestial visitation that materialized in my realm after wishing him into existence some days after I was born and every day since then. I've been reluctant to make this post because it lays bare some serious vulnerability-- celestial visitations are typically fleeting-- and I feared setting myself up to someday write an unreadable entry on profound loss. I'm throwing caution to the flatulent wind and celebrating love-feelings on this pre-formatted web template! My first (and last) sentence was originally going to be, "Check out this sweet cartoon my boyfriend is working on!" but something else came out instead. Woops! Enjoy...

Ways to Enjoy the Present: Crab Feeds

I think the glare of the cell-phone camera adds a nice sheen to the deli meats, don't you? If you are at all enticed by the "antipasto platter" to your left then you should consider dropping $30 dollars at your local neighborhood crab feed, where all this and more (and more, and more...) can be yours. Crab feeds are lucrative fundraisers for churches and social clubs and seem to be very popular around here, especially to Italian Americans and the 50 and up crowd. I sometimes like to go to them with my family, who have been hitting the crab feed circuits since the early part of the 1980s. The first rule of crab feeds, it seems, is to never diverge from this order:

1. Amble into gym, locate picnic table at which your family is seated, and sit there. Tie on provided plastic bib with crab illustration. Make smalltalk with people who aren't your immediate family but are at your table by some grave mistake. Try to identify "problem" diners by asking leading questions like "You big into crab?"
2. The antipasto platter and several carafes of red table wine arrive (see photo, above). The problem diners make hideous displays of greed and all the mortadella goes missing before the antipasto platter even brushes the table. Plan strategies against them for later.
3. Iceburg lettuce salad with a cherry tomato. Pass.
4. Soup. Minestrone or Clam Chowder. Right around this time the true crab feed hobbyists will procure their supplies from some carefully concealed kit-- individual butter melters, personalized crab crackers, and other things you didn't realize were so essential until you saw them and felt envious.
5. Rigatoni
6. After the rigatoni, a sort of Christmas Eve anticipation can be felt throughout the gym as diners notice the crab feed volunteers suddenly pick up the pace. The crab is HERE in the building!
7. Bucket after bucket of crab arrives like you've just won the lottery in a dream. Wrestle away legs and claws from the problem diners and eat until you no longer like the taste of crab (usually about 3 buckets in). Here is another glamourous cell phone photo of the carnage. What you're seeing is the small plate left behind after a volunteer had cleared my big plate. Greedier denizens will now start putting uneaten crab into baggies that are hidden in their purses for some fake homebound relative.
8. Mutter "why did I do that?" under your labored breath as an eternal raffle announces its gift baskets and spa days into infinity.
9. Chocolate icecream with wooden spoons like you'd get at the ballpark, tastes like wood and a faint childhood memory of chocolate.
10. Without much warning a dj appears and a disco ball is lowered. Hits from my grandparents' youth are on. Elderly couples emerge from the labyrinthine tables with smiling faces, no doubt thinking "it's great to be active still!" looking every bit like actors in a commercial for bone loss drugs.
11. Disco and r&b hits, alternately drunken dancing or leaving.
12. terrible terrible gas

Lurks in the Harddrive

In the process of backing up most of my computer (I anticipate and would almost be relieved by a crash), I found this word document.

So I'm sitting here in a silver lame and electrical tape Barbarella costume exuding 60s mascara hairspray in front of a computer screen with library books (most of them untouched) all around me, trying to come up with a paper on Pan-Africanism and pulp fiction. It's halloween. I'm nostalgic for things I never thought I'd be nostalgic for: a big sleazy house with a big sleazy party, to come home at 3am reeking of booze, B.O. and cigarrettes, and have a stomach queazy with romantic uncertainty. I'm bored. And I don't give a fuck about Pan-Africanism or pulp fiction.

Wait. Someone in the next room just yelled, “Grab my nipple, bitch. Grab my nipple.”
Things are looking up.

.
Halloween, 2006.
Adolescence Eternal

Friends Reduced to (Or Exalted As) Dream Symbology in 2k10

I had a dream recently wherein I want to say "an old boyfriend" but that wouldn't exactly be right... let's say instead a fascinator from my old co-ed days had gotten married and I found myself at an informal reception held in the happy couple's honor in a sprawling southern style mansion with creeping vines and a wide verranda. The house was the at the end of a country road that I often travel on in dreams that are going to include alien feelings and a party that I'm trying to leave. This union came as quite a shock to me, for when I knew him this fellow was more the rambling type that Joni Mitchell would have written a song about, embittered, after a brief but memorable affair (and here I am, too, with pen in hand) than the sort to go tying the knot. As he chatted amiably with guests and barbecued, I combed the house for a Sega Genesis where I spent the remainder of the dream playing a made-up, side-scrolling dream game comprised of blurry little ghosts with blurry objectives.

The video game portion of the dream was probably a gift from my boyfriend's subconscious to mine as we slept. The earlier portion was probably brought on by a meeting with a high school friend who told me he was living in an honest to goodness house in a neighborhood inhabited mainly of parents. He then introduced me to his fiancee. We were at the grocery store. I was probably wearing a big wooly nightmare and clutching something like a $12 homeopathic ointment for fungal itching, I don't really remember and it isn't important. "Are we really that age?" I kept thinking for the rest of the day and any other time friends of mine seem to be accepting adult responsibility for the direction of their lives with confidence and grace. Could it be that I'm holding myself back by subscribing to a limiting myth of myself as possessing an attractiveness as a member of society and a general set of abilities akin to those possessed by a urine-soaked lunatic? And yet, subscribing to this myth is deliberate in the sense that being viewed as capable and successful in the eyes of a society with which I often have trouble identifying holds little appeal. I'd like to believe that it is possible to achieve success by a definition more intrinsically human (more humanistic?) than what is currently offered by society... some sense of satisfaction brought on by finally becoming what you always were...or something? I was going to launch into the movie Slacker and why I had a hard time watching it (because I identified with it) but on second thought I think that review would be a redundant addition to this topic.

See you in my dreams,
R.