Smile

Tonight on the train I was in a serious mood, lost in my own little world and turning things over and over in my head.  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and I turned my head to find some dude clowning around outside my window (we were stopped at a station), maybe dancing to his iPod.  I guess he saw me turning my head in his peripheral vision and looked up at me, frozen in a silly pose.  We made eye contact and immediately burst into simultaneous grins.  The train pulled away and I was left smiling at the miles of nothingness between me and the mountains.

I love it when people are so unabashedly human, and so fucking cheerful about it.

Dinner conversation tonight covered annuity options, cancer research, basic math and architecture, Haitian Vodou, charity work, and eating goats while hiding from violent rebels in the Congo.  I'm not even going to pretend like this was abnormal for our house, but tonight it just really struck me that these are probably not your usual American family dinner conversation topics.

Then again, I'm not sure if there is such a thing as "normal family dinner conversation" given the number of people who have tilted their heads at me and asked, "So you have dinner at the table... every night?  Like, just all the time?  With no tv?  What do you DO while you eat?"  So, maybe I'm the new normal due to lack of competition?

Pretty sure my grandparents are quirking an eyebrow from the great beyond like Oh my god, we have no idea what happened, here.  She's doing all the right things, but she's doing them all wrong!  Also, her hair is pink.  What the hell.

I don't really have anything to say tonight, and I'm mostly just typing to procrastinate on this project that I really don't want to work on.  

One

I remember a moment when I was a teenager, still oddly-shaped and knobbly-kneed, sitting on my mother's overstuffed blue sofa with a boy and eating chocolate ice cream.  We were talking about whatever teenagers talk about when I asked, "Do you ever want more than this?"

I can picture his face, frozen for a second with his mouth still open in anticipation of the spoonful of ice cream which had also stopped moving rather abruptly just above the bowl.  "More than... what... exactly?" he finally asked, looking at me suspiciously.

I suppose in retrospect he probably thought I was about to demand marriage or solicit sex or something like that.  Ask for a baby?  It was Mississippi, y'all.  But at the time I was cheerfully clueless about the greater social implications of words, so I just kept talking like everyone lived in my head and not in the real world.  

"You know this.  THIS."  I waved my spoon haphazardly around at everything: tv, stupidly posed school pictures in gaudy frames, medals and trophies, shelves of knickknacks, nicotine-stained mini-blinds, mismatched antique chairs.  "All of this!"  I waved my spoon in a larger circle to represent the whole neighborhood, the whole state, our whole world.  "Don't you ever want more than this, knowing that there is so much more out there?"

I don't remember what he said, honestly.  Poor guy, I probably scared him to death.  I'm pretty sure these are not the conversations you expect to have with the mousy girl from a couple of streets over when you're a teenage dude.

Nearly 20 years later I feel like I'm still asking the same question and still getting startled, blank looks.  I've gotten more subtle, I guess, unless I've had some wine.  But my "there's always a fuck-it-go-on-tour option" speech still isn't as well received as I always think it will be, my "ok, so this plan seemed like a good idea but you're unhappy, so what's the next one?" question still gets me dismissed as someone who doesn't understand the way Real Life works.  

Real Life doesn't have a feasible plan B, much less a plan C or D or Q.   Real Life only has two options (generally "exactly what I'm doing right now" and "starving to death on the streets").  Real Life is inevitable and can't be changed, and wanting more than exactly this does you no good, after all.  Ask anyone as they're nattering on about how empty, monotonous, and meaningless their lives are now that they're Real Adults, they'll be sure to tell you all about how trapped they are, you are, everyone ever is.  It's frustrating to see people basically wasting the one life they get ("One!  You only get one!  ONE!  What are you doing?!" I want to yell) on a bunch of self-defeatist nonsense.

One day I swear to god I'm going to say, "Don't you want more than this?" and someone is going to say, "Yeah, you know what, I DO want more than this.  Let's make that shit happen, wanna?"  And then we're going to go on an epic road trip or start a non-profit together or travel the world or adopt a bunch of kids or start a food pantry or paint a mural or write a book or something, and it will be amazing.

Until then, I guess I'll just keep repeatedly throwing myself out of my own comfort zone at the top possible speed.  I'm basically my own manic pixie dream girl.

Hollywood would not approve.

Brilliant!

Gravity

I talked to my neighbor, B, today while the boys jumped on her trampoline in their socks and teased her dog.  She said, "Look, you don't have a washer or dryer and you don't have a car... why don't you just use my washer and dryer?  The landlord pays for all of the water, and I think the dryer is on your side anyway."

She also gave the guys some colored paper to make masks with, since we couldn't find any construction paper at the store this afternoon.

It seems like such a mundane domestic thing, but I want to record that I am noticing this, and I am grateful for it, and I'm taking it as a sign that the Universe thinks I'm doing something right and is helping me out.  I honestly had no idea how I was going to pull this "living on my own" thing off, but it's been a million times easier than expected, not entirely because of my own hard work.

Though, that has been a large part of it.  I am badass.

I probably have more to say, but there's a test to be studied for and things to draw.  My life is a never-ending loop of everything.

No Sleep Til Brooklyn

I woke up this morning and just completely trashed my entire plan for the future.  

That sounds negative, doesn't it?  It wasn't a negative thing.  It was a great thing.  But holy shit what did I just do?

I'm officially ditching the BFA to hack together my own little degree and I got a job.  Kind of all at once.  I was running all over campus, getting signatures and sending emails to my top 5 grad schools and turning in lists of references and all sorts of things.  Up and down stairs, in and out of offices, all the while snacking on the stuff I had in my pockets to keep from passing out.

(Luckily there was an apple and two granola bars and Halloween candy in my pockets, not just, like, lint or something.)

I have no idea what I'm doing!  I don't know how this is going to work!  It is impossible!  Which means it's right up my alley, of course.

I need to talk to some people and make some decisions before I can officially solidify anything, but holy shit.  I feel like I finally am on the right path again, or at least headed that way.  I'd wandered off there for a little while.

Right now, it is time for a nap.  It's the only chance for a nap I'll get until Thanksgiving, I think.