In the Middle of the Night with the Movie Whore

All this overabundance of (sometimes pain-killer induced) posting will be screeching to a halt very soon. Next Wednesday is my first day back at work. The letter, the calendar, the first-day schedule with its greetings, breakfasts and informative meetings, has already arrived. Plans are in place, progress is clicking along, I'm part of that incomprehensibly enormous and collective effort that keeps the world clipping along to the hum of the status quo. (What keeps us, like mindless assembly line workers, manning this madness?)

Up again in the middle of the night (this new-found insomnia is interesting, but will definitely put a stress on work), I question why my body is trying to destroy itself. I seem unable to compartmentalize these things tidily, keep topics tucked away at the end of the world. What could that possibly mean, on various levels? An immune system, designed to protect me from invading danger, has turned against me and is destroying healthy tissue. That's heavy. I must give this more thought (Yea, like I don't do enough of that). Sometimes I just yearn for manual labor. Turn off the head. Turn on the muscles. Sweat. Sleep. Repeat.

I watched Sin City yesterday and it was very satisfying in its one-sighted relentless drive toward a goal combined with a good dose of self-destruction (self-sacrifice) and violence. And of course I liked the constant dispassionate self-examinating narration. Mickey Rourke is another actor that deserves a post to himself. God, what a freak (I mean that in a good way). The movie is visually stunning.


Frank Miller's Sin City
So maybe work will be a good thing. It does have a way of stopping the thinking process, at least interrupting and controlling its' flow. My mind (and body) for the next 9 months will be directed by outside forces. I will try and squeeze in some of my own direction, but from past experience I will be pretty much checked-out, maxed-out, gone for the duration. Which typically makes me want to scream. I just don't want the self-destruction (self-sacrifice) to eat me up. Yeah. I gotta figure this one out. "Welcome to Basin City, home to a menagerie of killers, hookers, losers, and dreamers, all waiting for their next big score to get by."

If you were with me here in my little upstairs room in the middle of the night I would ask you what it is that you look forward to the most in your life. In what stage do you find yourself? Do you still harbor hope for profound happiness, true love, satisfaction? Do you still matter as much to yourself? Have you tabled some dreams and rearranged others? I know that you are interested in ideas, you have passions. Isn't it somehow troubling but also comforting that in the end we must release them all? Gone. But for a time those drives are tenacious and unrelenting, aren't they?

Mercy! No wonder we need drugs. Speaking of which, I have a very fond memory of one July night in New York City at Le Monde with Mo and Dina, eating cheese and mussels and between us enjoying two bottles of really wonderful wine. Mo and I sipped our first glass at an outside table on that breezy summer evening as Dina wove her way across the city to meet us. Calling my cell when she made it to the cross street, I walked to meet her, and we talked on our phones until we met laughing, breaking our connection, beginning a new one. A hug on the street. I dream of more such nights with friends.

Alrighty then. Snap out of it (Didn't you love Cher in Moonstruck?). I hear animals outside, probably racoons getting into the garbage, and soon I will hear the first bird of the day outside my window. Maybe I will visit Dolly today, stop at Goodwill, let my classroom planning stew somewhere in my subconscious. Maybe go to the gardens later, take some photos. I think I'll decide to practice Tai Chi. I'll certainly be texting AJ, whose last message to me read something like "Fuck them those dirty ass motherfuckers call them back and tell them to shove the pink bumpers straight up their elephant sized assholes." There is no controlling that girl. You just gotta love her, and who started this recreational profanity business, anyway?!

There is rain in the forecast. I look forward to that.