My Gorgeous Somewhere

Unfathomable

I remember when 1 million seemed unfathomable—the number of zeros strung along after the 1, as well as what they signified, impossible for me to envision.

I remember people telling me things were supposed to be awkward during what they called my awkward years. I’m not so sure I ever grew out of my awkward years, although I am no longer gangly and my teeth managed to grow in straight.

I used to run away from everything by climbing up a tree or running along an overgrown path to one of many hiding places. It’s not so easy these days to run away.

As soon as I think I’m good at something, someone comes along and reminds me I am not, then tells me the reminding is for my own good.

They tell me I know what I want to say when I write, but that I don’t know how to say it. They tell me my writing is uneven, slightly wrecked. Of course that’s the case, since my writing reflects my life. How could it be any more together than I am? And what’s better: writing that is even and predictable, or writing with a pulse—albeit sometimes weak and irregular—writing that moves under its own control and in ways you, and I, could never anticipate?

For a time after my mother’s death I forgot how little I like people. I thought it was her I disliked and that her death had freed me from that feeling. Turns out it had not.

I went to the grocery store yesterday to have a cheese sandwich. I looked around as I ate it. I had no idea what anyone was doing or why they were doing it. Not one person in that store made any sense to me.

We are all wasting our lives in so many and varied ways.

Writing is just another way to waste time, but at least it allows me to keep a record of how I’ve wasted it. I will always know that yesterday I had a cheese sandwich and took a nap. I will always know the sadness I feel right now, even if one day I manage to move through and beyond it to something else—something that at this moment feels unfathomable and that I can’t yet see clearly.

On Spending Time with Myself

If things get fouled up, I have nobody to blame but me.

If things go well, I don’t have to share the credit with anyone.

I waste no time other than the time I choose to waste.

I rarely have a disagreement with myself that can’t be mended relatively quickly.

I never make myself feel self-conscious or weird.

My values, beliefs and general worldview are always relatively consistent with myself.

I work hard when I am alone—at learning to write and learning to love, the two things that matter most to me.

I know when I am full of shit and am not afraid to tell myself so.

Some of the best conversations play out inside my head. I need to be alone to hear them.

If I want to suspend disbelief, I usually indulge myself.

We should always spend time with those we love, and one of the people I love most is myself.

In some ways, I remain a mystery, one I alone seem interested in unraveling.

Not Now, I’m Sleeping

I wake up with my head smashed face-down on a pillow the consistency of a marshmallow. When Lora used to get hungry in her sleep, she’d wake up chewing on her pillow, I think. Was it the consistency of a marshmallow? But the more important question is how did I get here? I am barely awake, so it’s hard to put meaningful thoughts together. In this state, factoids about friends I had two decades ago come to me readily, but I am unable to piece together the events that led me here, to this bed. With my mind still stuck like a turntable needle in a scratched record on the image of Lora noshing on her pillow, I try to fish from short-term memory more pertinent information, like what day it is.

With one eyeball-goop-caked eye, the one not pressed smack-dab in the soft body of the warm pillow, I try to focus on what’s around me. I am in the guest bedroom. The LCD display on the radio alarm-clock reads 2:15 p.m. I vaguely remember having had big plans today. I was going to clean the house and groom my toenails. Did I do that stuff?

My brain, about half awake now, gives me the answers I’ve been searching for. It is Sunday. No, I did not clip my nails. The house is in the same filthy state it’s been in for weeks. Instead I ended up doing what I always do on Sundays: I took a nap. That explains why I am in bed. Having determined that I am not in danger of missing work and that I really didn’t have anything cool planned after all, my wildly relaxed body pairs up with the half of my brain that is still slumbering. They determine that I am going back to sleep. I take a deep breath and settle into the mattress. It’s gonna be a long nap.

Then something terrible happens. Just as I am about to be taken again by Sleep—my sweet afternoon lover who can please me for hours on end—the awake part of my brain reveals it has a different agenda. It wants to get up and write. In an attempt to draw me out from under the covers, that spry part of my mind starts documenting the moment. It writes the first phrase, I wake up with my head smashed face-down on a pillow … . Before I know it, it has completed the first sentence and is on to the second. And the third. In seconds, it has the whole first paragraph completed. Then, in a startling and rare display of mental agility, it leap-frogs to the end and ties everything up with a surprise ending.*

This is what I get for reading Gabriel García Márquez before taking a nap.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying what the loquacious portion of my brain is stringing together is any good. I am drawing no comparison between the quality of my own writing and that of Márquez. I am just saying that reading tends to stir up words, and once excited, those words want to be expressed. I tell myself I can continue sleeping. I will remember these words later, I half-whisper, half-snore to myself. But I know that’s not the case. There’s no way I can remember the whole first paragraph as well as the surprise ending.* As I lie in bed, I know I have a choice to make: Continue to sleep in my extraordinarily coooooomfy guest bed or get up and make my way to the computer. Guess which option I chose.

I’ve tried to put some measures in place so I can capture ideas without having to immediately flesh them out. I have a DAT voice recorder I carry in my purse. That works OK when I have an idea in the car or some other private place. But I am loathe to use it in public, where I might draw attention making verbal notes like, “nude, towel, gay porn, heat” or “80, new tits, dead.” So I also keep pen and paper handy when I want to be discreet. But even these methods don’t ensure I will successfully capture ideas for later development.

Take the following notes I’ve left for myself in the past week alone. They make absolutely no sense to me now, and I have no idea what to do with them:

1.
toilet
rat
fear

I wrote that one in the middle of the night. I think I’d just gone to the bathroom. Clearly, it means I am afraid of a vicious rat lurking in the toilet that will jump up and bite my pretty ass when I sit down to pee, but the bigger story I had in mind is lost on me now.

Then there’s this one, which I came across yesterday and have no recollection of even having written:

2.
cut thing
dick thing

It’s in my handwriting, so I know I wrote it. But what does it mean? What riddles do these words hold that I no longer have the power to decipher? Is this about sex? Am I the cut thing and LoveShack is the dick thing? Or is it something else entirely? I’m afraid I will never know.

Then there’s this note:

3.
fat
albert

No clue what that one’s all about. I even watched all four episodes of “House of Cosbys” today to jog my memory, but no such luck.

Well, I am glad I got that out. Now I am off to cut my toenails. I might even polish them, too.

—*

* I had to scrap the surprise ending my brain came up with. It was over the top and my budget didn’t allow for the special effects that would have been required.