Suspense Saturday, July 29, 2006, 6:26 PM  A horn player woke me up this morning. It was almost nine thirty, so it I was okay with getting up, but the screeching sound of the horn made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was perfectly awful and made me laugh once I realized what the sound belonged to. Who was behind this rotten blowing? Some tone-dead guy in his mid-thirties with band aspirations? An old horn player who'd recently undergone mouth surgery, who was trying to get back into practice? A teenager being forced at gunpoint? It could have been any of the three as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not really. Concerned. About anything. Which might be my salvation or my damnation, but do I care? Sometimes. No, not really. It differs from day-to-day. Maybe from moment-to-moment. I still haven't blossomed after the feel like dying part of my life yet. I haven't come to terms with everything I feel like I'm missing, or have lost. There are the moments I think I have, and then there are the moments that let me know no way, Jose, you're fooling yourself. And so my life continues in suspense. I still feel as if I'm not where I belong, or doing what I am meant to do. I worry that I used up the last of my courage in moving from Indiana to Los Angeles. What if this is the most I can expect from now on? What if I never feel like the girl I used to feel like again? What happened to the rest of my courage, the non-adrenalin-fed parts that are supposed to help me endure the rest of my life? It would be such a waste if I left something personally crucial on that United Flight from Chicago to LAX. I wonder all the time what I'm doing with my life. Is this all there is to it? Work, eat, sleep, regret? Would things be different for me in Indiana? And will I ever recapture that feeling I used to have that I was meant for something more? I know it's up to me in the end, but I'm not the girl I used to be. I'm a rough, new me in skin that isn't the right fit yet.  
Engage in Unhingenosity
How hot is it? It's so hot that just the act of breathing makes me sweat. I could get heatstroke just from blowing my nose. Laughing might make me pass out, so I just giggle. In short bursts. Tomorrow it's only supposed to get to 82-degrees. Ah. The relief of only 82-degrees. In between flood and heat and fire advisories, I take the time to marvel about how I'm still alive. But only in passing so I don't get too hot while marveling.
Engage in Unhingenosity
Smackdown Sammy  He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself. (Nietzche) What do I write about when I'm so fed up with things that I can't see straight? Something that's censored because I'm not anonymous and can't get my bitch on like I really want to. Oh, if only. People think I'm easy to push around because I don't let things--or them--bother me. I forgive and forget easily. Not always, but usually. I'm not the type of girl who's going to make an issue about things unless I'm pushed once too many. I'm as happy-go-lucky, accommodating and undemanding as Fieval the mouse, but once someone's crossed the line, they know it because I let them know it. Enough is enough is enough; my former roommate and I discovered that the hard way. I dislike having to be Miss Manners or having to state the obvious, and when the time comes that I do have to make a stand, I'm long past the point of cool objectivity. I hate being forced into that position. The older I get, the worse that gets, although I suspect I'm no different from others in that regard. Still, that's no good. It's not good for my psyche and it's not good communication. I'm working on it. And then there are the nitpicking naggers. Holier than thou, looking down their noses at you from a lofty Mount Olympus-like perch. The self-professed dragons are the worst because once they admit what they are up front, they think they can exercise their dragony carte blanche up and down your bare backside. I'd bet my left boob--my biggest boob--that these are the kids who grew up saying, "I'm gonna tell Mom what you did and YOU'RRRRRE going to get a spanking." Even though you know you were wrong to do whatever in the first place and you'd apologized up, down and sideways. Or even worse, maybe you didn't mean to do what you did at all and it was just a dumb misunderstanding. But tattling makes the nitpicker feel important and if you take that away from them, what do they have? Did you ever notice that this kind of person never seems to realize how they might be seen by others? Maybe their horsey blinders make them believe they're witty, intelligent, always on top of things, that they're the Smackdown Sammy of the Hood here to save the world from unacceptable evil one nag at a time. And holy lactose intolerant cow, shouldn't we be grateful they're on the case? Yeeeeeah. I'm so grateful I feel like pooping out every last one of my curdes onto the plate for 'em because bitching about the same thing more than once takes a lot of energy, plus it makes the nitpicker look really good, too.
Engage in Unhingenosity
Panic attack This one was the worst of all. It hit fast and hard and I thought I was going to die. And I really want to call my mom right now, but it's three a.m. and I don't want to upset her. Has anyone reading ever had a panic attack before?
Engage in Unhingenosity
Drunken blogging  ... or wow, these red onions are mighty tasty. So, did I tell you that I fell on my forehead last Firday? There wassh a handicapped ramp in the bar, fuh crissakes, no railings in ssshight. And I thought I could take the ramp with one single bound, just like Schuper-Fricking-Woman. I've been told that the crack of my forehead striking the ground was heard over the sound of music and conversation. Personally, I didn't hear anything but the voice of the drunken gnat inside of me asking, what the? In hindsight, I wish I had thought of some other kind non-health-threatening attention grabber. Trying to sing Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun in a bar called Peanuts pales in comparison, as does the heartstopping stint when my mini skirt fell to my ankles in the dancer's cage at Ruminations. It would have been fine and dandy if I'd just gone with the flow, but no, I freaked the eff out and bent over to yank the skirt up like I was a Mormon brought abruptly out of a trance. Because I so inconveniently hit my head (and don't you just hate it when that happens?), the blood from the konkage drained down from the goose-eggage to my eyes. This past week, I resembled an abuse case. Embarrassing to say the least, but I sucked it up again. I guess I'm pretty good at that. By the end of the week I had gotten over the worst of my embarrassment and when people asked what happened, I said that some guy had caught me making the moves on his boyfriend. The reactions to that were pretty funny, but then I had to cop to what really happened. I'm a klutz who can't handle the booze. And I wonder how the hell Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and-and-and--oh, no, I can't remember the other girl's name--anyway, I don't know how these four girls were able to get up from the table after ordering more than two rounds of cosmo-fricking-martini-politans. Real life ain't all like a half-hour sitcom. Guess I fricken forgot that, but I'll excuse myself this time because I'm in Holly-fricking-wood. The bruising is still there, but instead of looking like a full-fledged raccoon, I look like a fledgling vampire. It's important to note, though, I still feel rare meat is barf-worthy. Um, I'll take the box of Bounce, by the way.
Engage in Unhingenosity
Favorite commercial But some of them are so. very. good. Like Liberty Mutual's take on responsibility. I get a lump in my throat every time I see this one. It amazes me that I even remember Liberty Mutual is the advertiser because I never remember this stuff, but obviously Liberty Mutual's new responsibility compaign is the power of successful advertising at work because I'm like two HUHs? away from Alzheimers. See proof of the magic of a successful message here. The commercial begins with the scene of a congested sidewalk in a city like Chicago or New York where well-dressed people are doing the harem scarem in a mostly gray-toned world, while a gentle, absolutely beautiful melody plays in the background. In the smack of nowhere, a man in bends over to pick up a stuffed animal from the ground to give it back to the baby who lost it in the stroller. The baby's mother is visibly affected by this, so much so that she performs her own act of random kindness in a coffee shop moments later. And then a voice begins to sing, amplifying the emotion (Sally Ellison of the band Hem, a group I've never heard of before but because of this one commericial, a singer I'd like to hear more of), and the commercial shows how these acts of random kindness are continued by people who witness the acts in the first place; the lookers-on. The heros. Us. It's poignant and amazingly well done. I know how this is reading. Like smarmy slop, right? But you need to see it. So go see it (scroll down the page a bit until you get to the video screen) and come back and tell me what you think. And share your recent favorite commercial. There are a lot of good ones out there, don't you think?
Engage in Unhingenosity
Ambiance Inside, it's like a renovated barn with vaulted, exposed beam ceilings. There are rooms-upon-rooms, all of them cavernous and stone-like with red candle lighting, dark brown wood trimming, curved archways with painted designs, wooden room dividers with cutouts. I find it to be sprawling, open, yet cozily private. Very Arabic, except I'm sure Allah would never approve of disco, often the choice of music played here. There are couches everywhere, black and red and deep and made of leather, inviting seats with red and white velvet hug me pillows, in areas which can be partitioned off by heavy curtains suspended from the ceiling. There are couches outside, white cushions surrounded by wicker and draped with transparent muslin good for keeping out mosquitoes, or if you're in the mood to put on a show, for titillation. They serve coconut shrimp, biscotti, hot wings and a positively wicked cosmopolitan martini. Who are they? The cream of the cream. Tall, built, intelligent, with smiles that send your pulse racing. They let you lick the salt off their neck. It's up to you to discover the price.
Engage in Unhingenosity
Stupid phobias On my lap. On the desk. WHAT the? Thinking a spider's nest had just hatched (spider phobia aside, who wants a bunch of baby spiders crawling up their privates), I jumped out of my chair with a screech the whole building must've heard. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. After much rounded-eyeballness and deep breathing, I came to my senses when I realized I'd blown a hole through my kleenex. Apparently I didn't notice it happening at the time because my body had been abducted in between the words miraculous and unchecked, and returned in time for laughter and discovery. I'm not sure what to think about my alien abduction, but I hope I'm not pregnant.
Engage in Unhingenosity
|
::Unhinged::
::Behind Unhinged::
::Unhinged Currently:: 
::Faves::
::Writerly Links:: if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. ~Erica Jong Holly Lisle Book Angst Contract Lingo Criticism Newbie's Guide to Publishing Slush Killer Story Telling Touch Graph Urban Dictionary Whatever Bartleby Grammar Guide Name Nerds Free Word Thesaurus Time and Date Word Navigator Writer's Edge Writing Articles ::Unhinged Reads::
::Unhinged of Yesterday::
::Still here? ::
 Raw evil score: 31.11% 
 |