Saturday, July 10, 2004

Going Up

I just finished a book called Freeing Your Creativity. Kinda sucked, kinda didn’t. This is surprising, as my life is usually divided between all-consuming love and wild hate. Ambivalence unsettles me. Must despise! Must adore! The book had some good ideas, but the writing in places was absolutely wretched, which makes you wonder about the author’s creds. I shall reserve judgment on whether to recommend him for instantaneous death.

I read a great deal of it over lunch hour in a Barnes & Noble. I was there by accident. I thought I had a therapy appointment, and showed up at the Waiting Room of the Damned, the entirety of which overheard the secretary gently inform me that I did not, in fact, have a session that day because my therapist is currently something like eighteen states away from here. I am assuming this has nothing to do with me.

Well. There was no way I was returning to the general vicinity of the Evil Boring Day Job, so I ran away to the books. I found a little table, slammed my purse down so as create the appearance that I had some Very Important Business to attend to, and sat there next to the escalator rushing through the good ideas and the wretched writing.

An interesting experience, reading by an escalator, this constant advancement of duplication. The belts churn a cycle of unending repeat, always moving but in effect going nowhere. Exactly like my writing career. I stared down at the book and saw the bottom halves of the world going by—- blue jeans, loafers, flowered skirts.

Smack in the middle of Chapter Ten I found a due date receipt from the last person who had checked out the book. It was due on the first of November, 2001—when this had last left the library, the world still thrumming from the shock of 9/11, my nephew was a separate sperm and egg, and I was in Ohio on the final lap of my Master’s degree.

Here is what else was on the due slip:

Evolution: The Triumph of An Idea

Poem-Making: Ways to Begin Writing Poetry

History of Art For Young People


I need to call this person. A nascent writer, that much is clear—but a poet, so clearly not somebody currently making a living of it. Art history? For young people? YEAH! Kids love Botticelli!

What really intrigues me is the book on evolution. A fascinating addition, and something the checkee had to go out of his way to grab off the shelf. I want to know what’s going on there. “Okay, I need to get a book on how to rhyme, and one to teach my four-year-old about the pre-Raphaelite movement, and also a semi-crappy creativity sparker, and—oh, on my way out, I need to check out this whole monkey-to-man business I’ve been hearing so much about."

This, of course, is coming from a person whose checkout slip contains, in addition to the worryingly ambivalence-creating Freeing Your Creativity, the books Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module and Wild About Horses: Our Timeless Passion for the Horse. Seriously, what’s the deal with this psycho?

Friday, July 09, 2004

Conversations With the Ice Bucket

I had to go WLH yesterday (Without Lunch Hour) at the EBDJ (Evil Boring Day Job) because I had to attend the only thing worse than an excruciating birthday lunch complete with cake featuring horrible whipped cream icing (EBLCWCFHWCI)-- it was an all-company luncheon.

These things largely consist of droopy sandwiches, flat Cokes, and a too-small conference room in which we are told 1) what a great company we are and 2) the many ways in which we, those of us who comprise the company, suck. It isn't technically compulsory, of course, but when the all-send email hits the inboxes with the closing tag, "The President looks forward to seeing all of you there"... yeah, you'd pretty much better put in an appearance. I walked down slowly as I always do so as to cut down on the whole awful corporate mingling thing (Writers & Engineers just don't mix, children) and by the time I got there the chairs were gone and the only place to stand was in the hallway outside the conference room.

This was good. The food was in the hallway, as was the ice bucket, which frankly has more personality than most of the people around here, and I was able to brace myself up against the wall and feel free to facially express my boredom well out of sight of The Man. I couldn't hear everything that went on in there, only fragments, so the whole hour and a half sounded like this: "Blah blah blah blah with regard to profit sharing, blah project management goals, blah de blah creates a synergy (yes, somebody ACTUALLY SAID "synergy" in a non-ironic manner) blah blah we are the world." Which was fine, as I'm quite sure that's how the whole thing would have sounded were I in full earshot anyway.

It gave me time to reflect, always a bad thing when you are me, because reflection at this point in my life pretty much leads immediately to: "What am I doing here?"

Well, yes, The Reason. I'm always looking for The Reason. When you are Catholic and you are depressed, you wrap your legs and arms around the belief that there is A Reason or you will absolutely lose it.

This got me to thinking, of course, about death. Not my own, mind you, but President Reagan's. We are a month away from this now, four weeks out from the massive silent crowds and Nancy clutching a triangle of flag as she weakly rested her cheek against her husband's coffin. My sorrow over the President's passing was tempered with gratitude that he is at last released and his family is now cleansed of the burden of watching this great man wither and fade away. I felt myself as a little girl, staring at a black and white television image of a blown-apart space shuttle: What was the meaning of this?

I think I know. I think he chose his time. I think God wanted this nation to gather and reflect on the good things he did and the good things he represented-- and He wanted us to do it at this particular moment, when we might come together in the celebration of a life rather than in shock and horror, united by terrible violence. And I think that God, while arranging this, was careful to spare the President the deep pain of 9/11. The Alzheimer’s, for all its creeping awfulness, at least kept Ronald Reagan blessedly unaware of the brutal attack on the nation he loved so much.

Yes, he chose his time. It was his final gift to the American people. Ronald Reagan, to the end, knew what he was doing here.

blondechampagne@hotmail.com

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Ways and Means

“You’re not making suicide plans, are you?”

The therapist, the general practitioner, the psychatrist with the lovely pastel pills–they all want to know this. I suspect this is less out of personal interest than it is about ass-covering (“Well, she never came out and SAID that she was planning to fling herself into a vat of White-Out, so…”) but still, it’s a disconcerting thing to ask of a person.

Look, I’m not gonna kill myself. Yes, I’m clinically depressed, have been for about a year, and really have been since March-ish. Yes, I sigh overmuch. Yes, I read a lot of Shakespeare (chock full 'o suicide) and as of late have experienced a stream of consciousness more appropriate to a beret-wearing person in attendance at Poetry Slam Night in the Overly Wrought CafĂ©. But no, I’m not going to snuff my own hand. I have a lease, and a perm appointment on Friday. My life is hashed up enough already and I refuse to make matters worse by exiting it with ratty hair.

I have no idea how I’d do it, anyway, should this actually begin to sound like a really good idea.

DROWNING: Ditching oneself in ocean sounds like a romantic and dramatic choice, but on second thought there is some seriously disgusting slime out there. If you’re going to do it, do it in a manner that’s not going to involve surfacing with a mollusk clinging to your ass.

OVERDOSE: Who can afford this? You know how many sleeping pills you have to take for this to work? You know how much sleeping pills cost?

This option also involves math, so chances are good that I merely render myself comatose, and that would really bring me down.

JUMPING: Very big heights make me nauseated. I really don’t want my final moments on Earth to be passed in spewage.

HEMLOCK: Yeah, I’ll just drive down to Walgreen’s and pick myself up some hemlock.

DRIVING A CONVERTABLE OVER THE EDGE OF THE GRAND CANYON WITH SUSAN SARANDON IN TOW: I can't stand Susan Sarandon. Of all the faces I want to be the last one I behold before releasing my soul, I certainly don’t want it to be that of a person’s who hangs around Tim Robbins on purpose.

HANGING: Too much work.

RAZOR BLADE: I can’t even shave my armpits in a competent manner, so we’ll just file this one in the “Would Likely Result in Coma” folder.

CARBON MONOXIDE: This seems like the best way to go. Painless, odorless, no blood. You just drift off to sleep. I majored in this in college. However, I live in an apartment, and I don’t have ready access to a garage, and I doubt that trying this in a carwash bay is going to have the same effect.

ELECTROCUTION: There’s always the hairdryer in the bathtub. But the only outlet in my bathroom is way the hell on the opposite wall from the shower, and my dryer has a really short cord. I can’t work like this.

GUNSHOT: Way, way too messy. Also runs the risk of generating bad press for the NRA. If you're a red stater, you just don't want to do that on the way out.

The only viable option, clearly, is sticking with the therapy and the pills and the smiley face stickers on the bathroom mirror. For one thing, I’d miss out on the weekly entertainment of the mental health clinic waiting room. You sit there, you pretend to read, you look around: “Look at that guy. Wonder what’s wrong with that guy? Hey, what are you in for?”

It’s a good time, talking about oneself for an hour. You just do a core dump and another human being has to sit there and listen to it. They’re not allowed to tell you to shut up or change the subject to what an obnoxious dolt their boyfriend is. That's worth your twenty-dollar copay right there. They’re friendship hookers, therapists.

Plus you get nice affirmation every now and again. “Client is well-groomed,” a childhood therapist wrote in my progress log once. See, who else is going to tell you that? “Mary Beth, you’re totally well-groomed today.” If that's not worth living for, I don't know what is.

yay, pills! blondechampagne@hotmail.com

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Ow.

I am typing with one hand here. ("If a blonde types with one hand, does the writing still suck?") There was a one-woman rollerblading spill over the weekend (or to use my brand-new British racing term, I “came a cropper”) and I now have a beautifully sprained wrist. So typing isn't the most comfortable activity in the world.

It was a pretty impressive fall, I must say, complete with dorky windmilling and an audible thud on the concrete. The Daily Racing Form would have reported it thusly: “Checked, stumbled, lost rider.” There is, as always, a bright side-- absolutely no one was around to see me go ass over ponytail. I have been explaining all the scrapes by telling people that my pimp is slapping me around again.

Fortunately, though, you only need one hand to hold a sparkler, and on the 4th of July Flipper and I tore around like five-year-olds waving these things in the air and generally doing our very best to set the apartment complex on fire. These were some truly carefully crafted pyrotechnics; you could tell by the way they either shot flaming ash onto our clothes or fell off the stick and sat there fizzling on the ground. It's just sad that you can't buy a quality product at two dollars a dozen out of a tent in a Wal-Mart parking lot anymore.

comfort the gimp at blondechampagne@hotmail.com

Previous Tastings