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Although I am selective, I do love my classic literature.  Even greater than my love for the classics is my love for new twists on them or works inspired by them.  A couple of examples of this would be Grendel by John Gardner which is the story of the infamous monster of Beowulf from Grendel’s point of view.  A rival favorite of this sort for me is the novel, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which is the prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, written nearly 120 years after the classic’s creation and is the story of the “madwoman in the attic” from Jane Eyre leading up to her isolation and madness.

Although perhaps not even remotely as serious as my two previous examples of classics-inspired work, I now have a new book to put my hands on and hope to not be disappointed.  Considering I will be approaching this read with expectations one SHOULD have when reading something titled, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,  I am looking forward to something of an ironically-gory tale offered up in classically elevated language.  I expect something dryly comedic.  Right up my alley.  This novel is by Seth Grahame-Smith, piggy-backing on Jane Austen’s original Pride and Prejudice text.

If this sounds like something that might spark your interest as well, go check out NPR’s bit about it (complete with a LOVELY excerpt from the novel), here.  I know I am certainly excited to read about 19th Century, English zombies (and maybe even a ninja or two)!

If the rest of these books are news to you, I highly suggest you check them out if they strike your fancy.  Do read the classics first if you decide to get froggy and give them a go; it makes for a much better effect.  Enjoy!

Despite the fact that Andrew Zimmern of the Travel Channel’s “Bizarre Foods” series started off his show being a fairly huge ASS to the people who played host to him as he searched out the oddities of the world, he did finally start warming up to those kind enough to share their culture and cuisine with him.  That regained some respect from me immediately.  I love his show.

I don’t watch much TV at all but when I do, two of the few stations that I can actually remember what channel they can be found on are Food Network and The Travel Channel.  Aside from having a terrible memory, there just isn’t a lot on television that actually holds my interest.  Much due to the same poorly fated memory, I only have room in the working bit of my memory for the stuff I REALLY, REALLY think stands out.  (We’ll call it “natural elitism” to fluff my ego.)

It just so turns out that Andrew Zimmern’s trip to Ethiopia happened to be one of those episodes that stood out to me.  I can’t seem to shake the flashbacks from his trip to the butcher shop specializing in camel when I see some of the scenes from the latest of the Resident Evil games, RE5 although, I think I might rather.  Thankfully, out-weighing the imagery of raw camel-meat is the memory of watching Mr. Zimmern sit down for a 3-hour coffee break with an Ethiopian family and among other things, eating popped sorghum like miniaturized, husk-free popcorn.

I was fascinated and have been on a half-assed mission since then to try to find some poppable sorghum grain in stores.  Being that I live in the “Midtown” section of my city, that is synonymous with “eccentric” and “eclectic” along with some less flattering associations people make with my area.  This also means, I just automatically assumed it wouldn’t be a bit of trouble to find some poppable sorghum.  Huh!  Right.

As it turns out, sorghum (especially in the South) is almost immediately assumed to mean sorghum SYRUP or at best, flour.  The grain is not so easily procured.  Ahh, enter the Internet.  What did we DO before we had this wondrous connection to any- and everything  we could ever imagine wanting to put our hands on?!  I have discovered that there are others even more obsessed with this snazzy snack than myself.  I have also learned that sorghum is about as amazing a grain as quinoa since it is gluten-free, packed with vitamins, has a ton of anti-oxidants (depending on the line of sorghum) and can be a God-send of a solution as a food staple for individuals with Celiac Disease (CD).
I personally just REALLY hate husks and would like something to snack on that offers a little more than the boring, standard popcorn.  Why not go for something stupidly hard to get your hands on??  Oh, but wait…  I already mentioned the wonders of the Internet!  Even more nerve-settling is the dependability of the web in some areas.  Good old Amazon comes to the rescue again.  I WILL have my go at this (and if it doesn’t work out, I may turn to tracking down The Baltimore Snacker’s lazyman’s solution and hunt down some of the pre-popped goodness)!

I’ve been called an art snob, an art fag, an art whatever a few times.  I’ve gotten strange looks for what I drool over in the art world.  I really do love art.  I wish I could afford my taste for that matter.  I seem to have a general fondness for the things in life that an awful lot of people consider luxuries, unnecessary and sometimes even painful wastes of time.  For me, these things are absolute necessities because they make life worth living when I’m miserable at the mercy of a lot of the things other people value.

I know that seems a bit vague so let me clarify…

I love art, I love books, I love food, I love traveling and well, I love the other pleasures in life too.  The fun thing is that all of these can be combined to intensify the enjoyment they each offer individually.  There are books about art, food, sex, travel and even other books.  There is art that features food and sex.  Food is often presented artistically, used to add sensuality to sex and then there’s “cookbooks;” their own genre of literature.  Sex…well…that’s an industry entirely in itself and travel can serve as a vehicle for experiencing all of these as well, but I’m not going to keep going with this.  You get the picture.

A while back, I went to Miami to visit a friend but knew it was going to unfortunately be a short trip.  We already had plans to go to OzzFest so that knocked out one day  straight-away.  For my other full day that I would have there, I insisted that we go to an art museum that I read about somewhere a while back (I’d give credit to where I saw it if I could remember but sadly my terrible memory claims another victim).  Luckily, my friend was of the open-minded variety and was quite interested in going as well after I told her about it.  My initial interest in the place was your average case of curiosity but after doing a little pre-trip researching, I had achieved a growing sense of intrigue at just HOW extensive this art collection might actually be and of what caliber.  The museum is called the World Erotic Art Museum.

Erotic art has always interested me a great deal.  To some degree, the same kitschiness of it that would draw a 13-year old to it allured me but as I read about the museum and its curator, my fascination became much more complex and mature.  As the curator, Naomi Wilzig’s bio and museum release document explain on the museum’s site, she began her collection with a request from her son for some “conversation pieces” of erotic art for his home.  Once she started collecting, however, she didn’t feel inclined to stop after fulfilling her son’s request.  Her collection spans continents, eras and taste and features every imaginable medium of artistic expression.  According to the museum’s website, she has over 4,000 pieces of erotic art on display and much to my glee, also a research library on the subject with over 250 volumes.

This museum is not only interesting for its choice of subject matter but for the tastefulness and tact which its owner/curator presents its contents through carefully organized displays and lighting.  Ms. Wilzig, herself, boasts a civics resume to be reckoned with as a prominent member of the Jewish community as well as the associated fame of her late husband’s  accomplishments, among which can be found his participation in the founding of the Washington, D.C. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

As a result of the care Ms. Wilzig has put into her passion for erotic art collecting, this is a unique art experience that won’t leave you feeling like you need to have a bath to wash off the filth that a strip club, sex shop or any other seedy joint might leave you with as soon as you walk out.  The World Erotic Art Museum is honestly worthy of its classification of being a “museum” as opposed to a ruse to get past the conseravtive crowd.  Really, erotic art is quite beautiful, fascinating and reflective of cultural differences.  This is one of the rare occasions where it gets to shine without the tinge of red light illuminating it.

I recently learned an interesting fact.  Abercrombie & Fitch was once an outdoor-sporting and excursion retail outfitter.  Now, there’s this element to consider about the nature of sporting goods stores; they frequently also sell firearms (or used to at least, as gun laws make that a greater challenge these days).  Of course, none of this is really very interesting or exciting but what I do find ironic is that as it so happens, the beloved A&F was also an establishment once frequented by one Ernest Hemingway in its day of more interesting retail merchandising.

What does this have to do with anything really???  Unless you already know that Hemingway shot himself, that it happened to be with a shotgun and that as the story goes, a Boss & Co. purchased at his little corner A&F…it has a lot to do with irony.  It may still have a lot to do with irony even if you DO already know the story…

Even more ironic though is that just as the nature of the business, Abercrombie & Fitch has mutated into something more akin to a poisonous, societal toxin than an establishment for buying oars, fishing rods and shotguns.  I find it ironic that this same toxic, brain-cell-killing brand just so happens to be the one who sold the gun that literally killed one of our great American writers.  Do not mistake my notation of irony for a shout for harsher gun control, however.  Hemingway was already deemed suicidal (despite the claim of his death to be “accidental”) and someone who is suicidal will take care of his business however he can — he could have very well bought a measure of rope intended for use in SPELUNKING from our old, trusted A&F retailer.  He could have then decided on that fateful day to hang himself instead of shooting himself.

It’s that time where I make a statement about myself and the world around me.  The world of consumerism, in this case.  I hate department stores.  All of them.  I hate trendy mall-rat magnets and “preppy” kid clothiers even more so I’m not JUST picking on A&F for their unfortunate marketing decision.  Seeing 1,000 16-year olds in the mall (on one of the accursed occasions I need to venture into one) all dressed in some variation of the same attire makes me want to vomit.  This bile-flavored reaction is provoked not only by the hegemonic effect of the look, but also the fact that these poor, idiotically impressionistic adolescents are being capitalized on (or their parents), brainwashed and stripped of their individuality at the mercy of the marketing machine.  It would have been better for Abercrombie & Fitch to stay bankrupted into memory but of course, some other brand would be standing in line stepping on ole A&F’s heels trying to get to the front.

These kids (yes, I’m old enough to refer to them as kids) are being convinced that to be “cool,” you wear ___ brand of the latest fad and if you don’t, you’re a loser, a misfit, an eccentric or even worse things that I know I or people I know have been labeled over the years (even as adults).  What horrifies me now is that teenagers seem to have an even more exaggerated panic-driven need to fit in than I think was ever the case when I was growing up.  Now it is out of desperation that kids will resort to all sorts of things to get what they need in order to feel accepted.  When the standard is Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch, for example they can’t always afford it either and resort to stealing.  Sure, there have always been various fads and trends but I NEVER recall there being SUCH a maddening need for a pair of Reebok Pumps or some Guess-wear that we (or anyone I knew) would resort to stealing.

It really is depressing to me to look around and see the trend of decay in America.  Kids aiming to look as boring as possible, it seems.  Kids brain-rotting from too little decent education.  The economy turning to crap and if Americans spending more to “stimulate the economy” was the answer, we should all already be golden thanks to where good ole A&F took the company business.

Hey Ernie…you got any shells left for that shotgun??

(Some sources for reference:   The Ever-Helpful Wikipedia, A Little Input from Answers.com, Ahh-Reebok Pump )

I have a tendency towards strange dreams as I mentioned in my first post, here and it’s been a thing for quite some time.  I did finally start writing them down and typing them out a few years back after I realized it wasn’t a passing phase.   I also apparently have a knack for dreaming in exquisite detail that I still maintain is wasted on my inability to really draw, paint or even sculpt but I have tried at least to do my best at finding the words to describe the things I see when my eyes are closed and my mind is left to its own devices and designs.  My dreams aren’t always coherent obviously but the following one is from 2005 and was extremely detailed and long so I thought I might share it.  It may find its way into a story or book one day so I’ve been hanging onto it.

I know most people read without commenting but this is one where if anyone feels like commenting, I would be interested in what they thought of this weird strand of madness that my head conjured without my full involvement…  If not, whatever.  I kept it for a reason and that’s good enough for me.

Deserted Road in a Dead Landscape 10/05/2005:

I was driving down this pretty much deserted road through dead landscape (meaning primarily burned out looking fields) and it was an eerie shade of “dusk” out — that unnerving yellow-tinged, fading light that makes it nearly impossible to see anything as it truly is. There was almost a lingering residue of smoke filling the air that made this visual handicap almost unbearable and alienating.

If there’s one thing you never want to happen in a place and time like that, it’s to run out of gas and that is exactly what I was about to do.

As if I’d been driving through a forest (although it seemed more like I had been driving the deserts of eternity), a settlement of sorts comes into view on my left and I felt the relief that tells me if nothing else, I can find some semblance of aid at this place.

This place, a very rustic little cluster of buildings spaced apart as though an early attempt at rural strip mall-ing, was enclosed by a rough log fence. This was obviously a fence originally intended for an aesthetic purpose and that alone being as how the gravel/sand driveway from the road into the far-too-large-for-being-sensible parking lot was just as insensibly wide. You couldn’t have kept a blind hog with that fence. As it was, however, this fence was indeed keeping something in, something unseen at first but /felt/ before even seeing the place. Funny how in hindsight, you remember those funny little twitches in your stomach that told you to keep driving, even if you did run out of gas – you know, the ones you always shrug off as something you ate. This was a case where I really wished that I had listened to my intestines.

…But I stopped anyway, still convinced this was a fortunately timed discovery. I pulled into the desolate parking lot, dust stirring all around my car, the sound of gravel crunching beneath my tires had no competition for audibility – there wasn’t so much as an insect contributing to the atmosphere, but of course I didn’t really notice that at the time either. Again, now that I think about it, there’s something to be said for a place that even insects refuse to plague.

There were three or four small log buildings in this creepy little corral none of which really showed signs of life – no dogs, people or other cars around at all, just silence aside from the complaining gravel as I made my way to the second building of the lot in order to check around for signs of life. I stepped inside the dark doorway and was struck with an almost nauseating feeling, suddenly wondering if I’d crossed over the threshold into another world. A sense of confusion and timeless presence in this place overtook me as I wandered around drunkenly from room to room. Streaming bits of the fading, sick light crept through tiny gaps in the exterior walls, bringing with it, memories of how the interior of houses in nuclear bombing experiments looked in /National Geographic./ It seemed as the daylight faded further and further into night, my loss of a sense of time and direction, reality even, became more and more hazy. Wandering aimlessly around this single structure, I eventually began to no longer feel alone.

Although I saw no one else at first, I began to feel the presence of multiple people and eventually a whisper that grew to the volume and complexity of the pre-performance crowd at a symphony – except more frantic, more tragic. As the darkness continued to intensify, flashes of color and slivers of light began darting past me although nothing had so much as touched me throughout my wanderings. These flashes slowly became people, blurred and unclear but far from happy looking in their passing.

After some time, I realize I didn’t remember when I last felt my feet on the floor. I drifted as my disorientation became even greater. The voices became more distinct. Someone was speaking TO me. I still saw only blurs of people in their passing but I could not seem to determine the origin of the voice speaking to me. The voice was rambling about its experiences here, in this building, this house of trapped souls, doomed to wander aimlessly for all time. The voice told me of others before me and of her own misadventure into this place – it was finally a decipherably female voice. The sadness in her voice did not lend hope for making it out of this place.

She had become more distinct to me as I had continuously been accepting the madness of this place as reality and as she spoke, I began to make out her sad but otherwise indifferent face. As we drifted in this abysmal hell, she wrapped her arms around me, whispering in her spectral voice a warning not to fall further into the madness, this demonic trap set for the road-weary and fearful. She grasped me firmer and her strange body converged upon me with a supernatural sexual transference of energy which carried throughout my entire being as she continued to whisper her warning. Distracting as her action may have been, this nameless female thing had suddenly drawn my consciousness back to the forward regions of my mind where her whispers became commands.

“AWAKE! AND FLEE!” If a whisper could ever have been capable of synonymously being a shout, this was that occasion. As I snapped alert, I found her still holding me at arm’s length and with previous unknown knowledge of this place and it’s possession by a greedy, trickster spirit named Harris.

I never acquired the history of Harris’ coming to this retched place or who he was from my anonymous she-specter savior. I had more pressing things on my mind at the time. Perhaps one day I will have the nerve to research the place – if it even really exists.

In the meantime, Harris’ power over the place apparently and unsurprisingly kept him privy to the status of his dinner of souls. Upon the realization of my reinstated consciousness, he took the vantage point of my tormented friend by possessing her spirit. >From the change in demeanor, I knew without a doubt, she had been possessed and that he was attempting to possess me as well.

He had the grip of my arms that she had just before his possession of her and while tightening his grip, Harris began speaking as her of how even if I could not make my way out, I would surely be welcomed and loved by the other residents of this place. I grabbed her possessed arms even harder than they were capable of holding to me and began to shake her form (body is doubtfully appropriate) and demanded that Harris show himself.

As I did this and shouted this at her gentle face, it transformed to a man’s. This face mirroring my own was none like walks the waking world of daylight. The eyes were not even just empty sockets, but black abysses with an expressed purpose to consume. I refused to let my poor doomed female specter’s warning become lost in my defeat. I told myself that she warned me because she knew I had the power to overwhelm Harris.

And I did. Perhaps through lent power on her part, I managed to conjure a force strong enough to crush Harris backwards away from me.

I wasted not so much as a second look before hurdling towards what I now was capable of seeing as the very door I had walked in through, no more than 20 feet away. That threshold of waking freedom – the escape from this demonic leech named Harris was within reach and I had not the faintest doubt that I had the ability to get there.

When I crossed the threshold into the same eerie time of day that I first entered the building, no more than a moment had passed although it felt as if I had wandered for an eternity inside the horrible darkness of that log cabin. I did not as much as slow to get back into my car, still parked in front of the building but rather, ran until I no longer felt sand and rocks kicking up against my back.

When I reached the road, I knew I was beyond Harris’ reach. I knew his control started the moment I stepped foot on that gravel space and when I looked back inside that rustic, fenced in yard, my car was no longer visible. I lacked concern at the loss but rather, could feel the sad applaud from my poor female savior at my re-acquisition of freedom from that consuming hell.

I turned my back on that forsaken place and refused to even walk past it in order to continue on my original journey. Instead, I went back the way I came, to the safety of the wasteland landscape and the feeling of freedom through travel. I now knew what a sensation of real eternal drifting was like and any road is better than that; it is a path of freedom to and from somewhere, anywhere — not a sea of dark timelessness, lorded by evil.

Come to think of it, I don’t think I am going to look into that place or Harris after all….

Thanks NPR for finally showing the world that I’m not as dumb as I look!

Although I’m sure all of the Apple fanboy types will have something snide to say about what the graphologist cryptically concluded about the true owner of the doodle in question, I still say it is an interesting article.

The Genius of Doodling

“It’s a very good strategy for the next time you find yourself stuck on a slow-moving panel with an aging rock star and verbose former president.”

So I’m slow at getting through my to-do lists because there are so many and they are all so very long but I have finally gotten around to scratching off a couple of items here and there.  Two of those coincide to a degree.  Books and movies; in this case I speak specifically of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.

I tend to experience things on several planes…  Keep that in mind because I feel inclined to expound on as much of my experience with this story in its two forms as much as I can stand to dump out of my head at this time.

Now, although this book is technically labeled as “magical realism,” I find it less than magical by my own favored understanding of the definition of that genre of fiction.  I apparently share the same understanding of “magical realism” as the Mexican critic, Luis Leal who explains the usage of it like this:  “Writers like García Márquez, who use magical realism, don’t create new worlds, but suggest the magical in our world.”  (This quote can be found under “Definition in literature,” here:  Magical Realism According to Wikipedia.)  My my favorite examples of this sort of magical realism are a trilogy of books by Louis de Bernières (The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord, and The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman) and a book by Kathryn Davis called The Thin Place. A more expansive definition of magical realism than what these books fit into includes something more akin to surrealism in perception of the world — something more of a HYPER sensitivity to the world around one’s self.  This latter understanding is really more of where Love in the Time of Cholera fits for me which although not my favorite strand of the genre, is still quite wonderful.  Here is another definition which suggests why this genre began with Latin American literature due to the greater prominence of Catholicism and superstition in Latin culture:

“The marvelous begins to be unmistakably marvelous when it arises from an unexpected alteration of reality (the miracle), from a privileged revelation of reality an unaccustomed insight that is singularly favored by the unexpected richness of reality or an amplification of the scale and categories of reality perceived with particular intensity by virtue of an exaltation of the spirit that leads it to a kind of extreme state.  To begin with, the phenomenon of the marvelous presupposes faith.”

– Alejo Carpentier

I can at least see how the BOOK squeezes its way into this classification with its vaguely exaggerated Latin landscapes and people.  It definitely comes through more eloquently in its original book form than the movie tries for where instead, the impression of exaggeration ultimately comes off as tacky and silly when transported to the screen.  Granted, badly done aging effects in some of the cases do not do this film any favors in keeping you with a straight face, I still have to give props to the aged, sagging breasts of the older Fermina in stark comparison to her pert, younger counterparts from earlier in the film.  I was pleasantly surprised at how well they pulled that off without softening the embarrassing blow of falling from graceful beauty with age (even if Javier Bardem and Benjamin Bratt were spared the unsightly humiliation of being visually aged beyond their still quite handsome faces).  Then again, they possibly could have saved a little bit of face had they scratched John Leguizamo from the cast list.  Even if I do like him somewhat, he is far too goofy to be playing the part of such a ruthless ruffian as Don Lorenzo Daza.  He brought the wrong kind of “magical realism” to this story unfortunately.

I have to say though, if the essence of even Carpentier’s magical realism from the book is all but brutalized in general on the screen, I still feel like Florentino was executed expertly.  That very well may be more to the credit of Bardem’s outstanding acting than screenwriting or directing.  Florentino’s nearly laughable obsession with his love for Fermina and the equally laughable way of killing the “pain” of his love for her is probably the best characterized example of the magical realism conveyed across both book and film.

Love is a bitter pill, no matter what the era or geography.  Love in the Time of Cholera is a wonderful reminder of that.  Human emotion is a complicated, fascinating and often infuriating element of what attaches us to this world.  It is the essence of the adjective really.  It pulls together the intangible into something we can identify — that we can love, hate and everything in between.  That is precisely why LOVE is what makes this novel still magically real I think and why Florentino is the backbone of the fantastic characteristic of this book — not the scenery, not the shenanigans that occur, not the mules that Lorenzo owns; it is Florentino’s practically ridiculous love.

Florentino’s obsessive love for Fermina really is ridiculous.  It is outrageous to everyone he meets in his life and to consider someone realistically building his entire life around the belief that he was put on this Earth with the sole purpose to love one specific girl that he met as a teenager is asinine at best.  This story would have been just as absurd 100 years ago as it is today if carried over into reality.  But for the care of García Márquez in his utilization of reality’s rules and content by going to the trouble to MAKE the impossible seem quite possible indeed, this story would still be equally absurd even as fiction.  Amazingly, he manages to create believeability as the story unfurls, manufacturing the magically real.  This is why he is so heavily referenced as a master of this craft called Magical Realism and all of its delicate intracies.

In an effort to convince myself that I have “Nothing To Worry About,” I pay tribute to Peter, Bjorn and John for offering up the right words…

Music…it’s not a good escape for me most of the time if I’m in need of one.  I typically find hidden meaning in anything and that can especially apply to music since it boils up from the depths of the human soul in its inception.  Darkness is found amongst those jewels of the soul and whether you want to admit it or not, we’ve all got a little or a lot of it.

Despite the risk of the ole rise and fall of the spirits at the mercy of the expiration of a track’s play time and the start anew as the counter resets to 00.00 for the next song, I’ve actually come across some songs that stick pretty hard with me lately and are quite all over the freaking map to be frank.  (SURPRISE!)  I won’t torture you with that degree of exposure though.

Being something fairly upbeat in tempo, “Nothing To Worry About”  is one of my recently favored tunes primarily for the title quote for this post…  It’s not all sunshine, rainbows and butterflies, despite it’s upbeat feel.  I like things that reflect my conflicted feeling in this world.  This song is great for that.

Another great example is actually also a recently befriended song.  And before I get into talking about the song, I need to preface it’s glory with the fact that I don’t particularly care much for the band over all:  The Decemberists.  I personally think that (from what of it they’re already broadcasting on MySpace anyway) the album that this song can be found on (out March 24th) seems loaded with rip-offs.  I will never claim to be an expert on something, even when I’m the only person in the room who knows a damned thing about a topic but this seems pretty blatant.  I’m talking…A LOT of rip-offs.  From the most prominent to me, seemingly most of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club album to an oddly tacked-on snatchy bit of “Losing My Religion” by REM.  The one song I HAVE heard that I am fond of falls into my previously mentioned beloved category of “deceivingly dark” and to be honest, it probably is stealing from someone too.  “The Rake Song,” however, is catchy enough and reminds me at least a little of Jack White and his chunky sound and that’s too good to ignore for me…  It’s twisted — yet fun.  “Alllright?  Alright.  ALLLLRIGHT!”

I tend to have a fondness for this effect in music over all anyway so it also shouldn’t come as a surprise that I love The Gorillaz.  I also think that Nick Cave has pulled it off fairly effectively over time but even he hits my ranks of the recent with a new song (Dig Lazaurs Dig).  Other genres can be fun too but that’s enough to sing you to sleep for now…  I can only imagine the dreams…

Good Night.

My six year relationship that I have bled gallons to try to make work against the odds is ending.  I know it’s for my own good and probably for his but it still hurts.  I really thought I could MAKE it work.  I’m not sure what part of it hurts the worst…the fact that the same thread of amazingness about him that was there all along, that kept me from giving up — kept me hooked — is still there (even though now I know it’s just not enough to keep me from drowning) and I know I’ll miss that…  Or maybe it’s the fact that all of the bad was REALLY bad and I can’t BELIEVE that I kept shredding my hands trying to climb up above the waves on that tiny thread of good amongst the ocean of bad…  Or maybe it’s that I feel simultaneously weaker AND stronger than the average person for putting up with all that I did for so long before it finally broke me and I had to say ‘fix it or I have to give up and save myself’…  And still I feel like an immediate family member died sometimes, usually without warning and mingled with rage.   It could be any, all or even more than all of that which makes it hurt like it does.

Still, I think about all of the things I’ve blamed myself for over the years and think of how little he probably thinks I actually consider to be my own doing in the death of our relationship.  I think about the fact that I still hate him in some ways from all of the REALLY fucked up things he’s done over the years and almost immediately think of reactionary awfulness that I’ve committed myself…  In a discussion about our damages today, I was reminded of one of the things that DID actually make me feel like not quite as big a nut-job as I probably really am and it’s that he is too…more so really in some ways.  I’ve got my own extremism issues and have said so for years and years and years.  He’s probably got me beat by yards on that though.  Go him.  I’m volunteering him to win THIS pissing contest…  I’ve got my head-start on therapy…  I really feel for how much he is going to need in order to really gain some sense of wholeness and GOOD self-confidence but just like I’ve asked myself about myself…I wonder if he’ll CHOOSE to try to find some sense of middle ground when faced with that realistic option.

The thought of being normalized makes me think of an episode of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” where Ellen Burstyn (the speed-balling mother from “Requiem for a Dream”) plays Detective Elliot Stabler’s bi-polar mother.  This episode sticks out in my horrible memory primarily because of when she’s sitting at the table talking to Dective Stabler’s partner and tells her that when they made her take medicine for being bi-polar — to “fix” her — that she felt like she had been stripped of her soul…that even if it made her life path extremely difficult, she at least felt like herself.

I wonder if he or I would be the same if our extremes were normalized by therapy or medication.  I’ve already gone that road of questioning though.  Except for times like now, when I’m struggling to maintain the ability to function, I would rather have to deal with people not understanding me, having few friends or social engagements and having to at least partially mask some of my more difficult to swallow parts when I have to (e.g. work) than to walk around feeling like a shell of a person that I don’t even know.  Screw it if I can’t understand myself but at least I KNOW me!  Maybe I’m just getting old in my craziness and therefore comfortable but I’d much rather be the interesting person that I think I am with all of my conflicting pieces and puzzle-soup thoughts than a cookie-cutter punch-out from the burbs…  I’m happy with my dysfunction I guess — even if I’m in tears or want to “destroy something beautiful” (to quote one of my many favorite lines from “Fight Club”).

Maybe I WILL just take my Prozac, drink alone and settle into the role of “old cat lady” with a piece of magical realism fiction to keep me company while I listen to a lovely French death metal album…   And hey, at least of the relics of my relationship I get to take some added complexity with me when I go!  In the meantime, I hope he at least gets some help and learns his options before he decides to remain crazy and alienated too.

No one cares if this is my first or last blog post ever but for the record, it is my first.  I have spent the better part of my life with a compulsive desire to feel words form from the efforts of my finger tips — either by pen or by keyboard.  It’s the sensation that matters most — that beckons to me — not so much what I have to SAY at the moment…  So for you, this very well may be the most uninteresting thing you’ve read in your entire freaking life…  For me, it is a tiny little adventure in the world of too much already like it so although I know better than to expect much, I still can’t help but play with the idea of grandeur.  I’m primarily a pessimist for a reason…

That being said, I would just like to make it clear that I very well may be one of the more well put together nutcases I personally even know.  That’s not bragging…or is it??  I backhand my own self-compliments.  I’ve been told that I have a “self-esteem” issue a few (too many) times in my adult and maybe even adolescent life.  The funny thing is that the few people on this planet who know and believe in me (which I still am dumbfounded at why) maintain that it’s all out of order that I lack it…  I’m pretty sure they try to understand me as best they can but for too many years now, I still don’t get me my-damned-self.  I make no sense.  Nothing is clear-cut and black-and-white for me.  Nothing is simple.  Reality is odd and most of the time, SURreal for me.

I suppose this would at least be part of the reason that I am drawn to the creative and the variety in life as well as why I look at nearly everything from about 6 different points of view.  I don’t do myself any favors with this latter part, by the way…but still, the result seems to actually be that it is the thing about me that both gains so much awe from those who believe in me as well as INFURIATES them.  Virtually nothing is easy for me and as a result, for them to be there for me.  I am a self-proclaimed burden despite my best intentions to be as far from that as possible.  In my effort to not be a burden, half the time I cause myself to be an even bigger one.  It’s genius really…

Although I love art, food, traveling, etc.  I seem to be ill equipped to paint, sculpt or even draw.  Hell, I suck at STICK FIGURES!  I’m great at eating (and as I get older, it’s showing more), but only okay at the whole “cooking” gig.  I don’t typically pine to cook, I don’t stalk about my kitchen in my artiste’s fog of inspiration, creating (or even REcreating) masterpieces.  I lack the vision and creativity and inspiration for that.  Traveling…well, I do that fairly well but it’s expensive and I feel hedged in additionally by my pathetic inability to learn other languages.  I also just don’t have that bad-ass traveler’s instinct for finding cool stuff, places and people.  I’m a meticulous person and a meticulous traveler as a result.

Writing though, I seem to at least stand a fairer shot at being half decent at with some time.  For one, I’ve been told more than a few times that I have a very keen sense of detail and the descriptive but really, that’s not a lot to ride on for content (and anyway, I maintain that it’s only because I can’t draw or paint!)…  I’ve come to realize over the last year or two that creativity may be handing itself to me in code thanks to my tendency towards peculiar dreams.  Sure, sure…I know you’ll say that I should save them for my shrink but really…REALLY!  Some of these would just be a shame to waste on a shrink if he doesn’t appreciate the aesthetic detail in some of them.  Would you want a shrink to read a 3 page, single-spaced detail of a fantastic (in the fantasy sense), 2-minute long dream and only have a diagnosis to reply with??  Wouldn’t you feel cheated???  So I am starting slowly (REALLY slowly) on my fiction but need to start putting something on the refrigerator so this will be where I start.

Expect topics to range from the mediocre to the BIZARRE with me.  Although there may be no sense to the order or choices of topics, I assure you, there is some strange little thread of thought that can be followed back to a moment of realization and/or connection to it for me and I will eventually get some categorization done to make the organization a little easier on the reading-eye.   Enjoy or don’t.