I'm an intelligent human but I constantly go astonishingly stupid things. I compromise my morals. I don't speak up when I should. I purposely fly below the radar because I tell myself i don't really give a shit, and then I'm startled when life moves on without including me.
lately I feel like my brain hasn't evolved. I lived a lifetime's worth of crap in my twenties... now, purposely serene and unfettered, I find myself severely understimulated. life is quiet and predictable and manageable. I'm not driving down creepy country roads at 4am, wiping my tears away with the hand that's not gripping a cigarette. I'm not sleeping in my car in a Safeway parking lot because I don't want to go home. I have OPTIONS that I didn't have in my twenties. I'm poorer and weirder and I have "adult" things hanging over me, but I feel so much better about being alive...
today I saw someone whom I knew before I met my second husband. she met him, even. it may have been the night that he showed us how to stack coins on our elbows and then flip our arms just right so's we could catch the coins in our hands. he was charming. he wore one of my necklaces all the time. he made me appreciate The Band, Willie Nelson's "teatro", U2... things that had previously been background noise but became the sonic staple of an era. he defined an era... what a grotesque thing to say about someone I fully intended to spend the rest of my life with! seeing my old friend today was glorious and fucking painful all at once. I was rudely reminded of what I have and haven't done, what I am and am not. I am ten years older now. it's been an interesting ten years. but ultimately, do i feel any different? i'm still an idealistic hyperactive hedonistic dork with easily bruised feelings and amorphous expectations. thank god she recognized me right away. how much worse would I feel if she hadn't?
-the clouds today, as seen from the titillating throes of lake city way.
good rhyme.
-later in the evening, also from work. I said "it's like a 'there is no dana, only zuul' sky" and no one really laughed.
-the outtake/other favorite illustration from "George's Marvelous Medicine."
-I finally uploaded the 1700+ photos from my phone. I don't trust the tensegrity of my computer, so it's rather nerve-racking. I have pictures on my phone I forgot I even took. hecatomb, pre-cancer. a guy I dated, me grinning naively. the last place I lived, the way things were arranged. my parents visiting, smiling, their expressions when they don't know I'm taking a picture. my STUFF, configured just so. I took pictures of myself shitfaced. sober. bored. pissed off. disillusioned. sunshine behind clouds. vapid displays at the grocery store. witty stickers on signs. beaming into nothing.
I feel like a perpetual, permanent observer. I appreciate my surroundings in a detached, lonely way... I think, "this is my species, reaching its full potential..."
it's a weird way to live.
and because no one else dares to talk about their weirdness, I feel like I'm the only one who feels this way. or maybe I am?
more Roald Dahl:
"it is an awful feeling to come down alone to breakfast in the mornings, to sit there in silence with a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, and to wonder what you are going to do with the day that lies ahead. the room you are sitting in, which has heard so much laughter, and seen so many birthdays, so many Christmas trees, so many presents being opened, is quiet now and feels curiously cold. the air is heated and the temperature itself is normal, but the place still makes you shiver... a chair stands crooked on its legs, and you sit staring at it, wondering why you hadn't noticed it before. and when you glance up again, you have a sudden panicky feeling that all the four walls of the room have begun creeping in upon you very very slowly when you weren't looking."
or:
at the dopey hippie co-op in my nearly-backyard, tonight: a short older man was slurrily chatting away in the checkout line. "it's the co-op, but people call it the 'coop'!" he informed me. I made the dumb noise I make when I smile under obligation... he continued braying while I was buying my, sigh, Eco-friendly toothbrush and OLIVE AND CILANTRO SALSA (which sounds exquisite; it'll be breakfast): "why did the chicken cross the road? to run AFOUL of the law!" "you just told me two more chicken jokes than I normally hear in a day" I said as I left.
*
boredom is a novelty. it is a human's arrogant way of proclaiming existence not EXCITING enough. boredom is a hallmark of the middle class, of people who didn't have to hunt or be slaves or sweat inconveniently, of people like myself who have the snively privelege of self-effacing downtime and wheedly musings. I am EXACTLY aware of how fucking FORTUNATE I am. let there never be any fucking doubt of THAT.
