Love Is The Key That Unlocks The Door Which Leads To Ultimate Reality

"There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood."

-Rev. Martin Luther King

Dolly Once Loved Carol Channing

Checking my e-mail a minute ago, I realized I have reached a time in life where a "rebate processor position" doesn't sound promising. Not that rebate processing is great work, but turning the banal and mundane (like spam) into creative ideas and projects has always been an interest. I once worked as a mangler in a laundry at Yellowstone National Park, and the old me, on seeing spam in my inbox that said "rebate processor position" may have given it some thought. Just for the hell of it. Something fitting to write under "head mangler" on my resume. I have always liked collecting experience, experiencing life as art. But I feel a shift.

Does getting older mean caring less about things? Once Dolly loved Carol Channing. There was something about Carol Channing that she just adored.

Maybe Carol Channing's ability to play musical instruments and be the life of the party. Or the way she always looked nice, put on a big toothy smile.(Dolly was always encouraging me to "smile!") She also had a high dose of my mother's biggest asset. In fact, not long ago, in the town where Dolly spent most of her life, an old friend of hers told me, punching the last word:

"Your mother had personality."

These days, in the assisted living facility, Dolly could care less about Carol Channing. Or her old friends. Or her husband, who has been dead over 20 years. She doesn't care about looking nice or putting on a good face, either. She has changed.

Am I losing interest in the things that have always interested me? Maybe I'm afraid that my mind just won't work the same anymore, like Dolly's. And afraid that the strings that bind me with interest to people and ideas will no longer hold. I want to hold onto my big toothy smile, keep myself up, learn a musical instrument, but you can't be the life of the party forever, can you?

Toxic Simplicity (Britney and Me)

I could quickly become as crazy and hysterical as Britney Spears simply by reading the news. World news, national news, celebrity news, all has merged into a manipulated parasitic mess. It is a cynical lens through which I gaze, with little hope in sight. On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind. The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

I hit my head against walls. I tear my hair out. Or did I shave it off? My job has made a fool of me, the thought sends me reeling with longing toward a toxic simplicity, some post-apocalyptic time of wandering, scrapping for food, creating fire with sticks and shelter with branches. I crawl into the walk-in closet where I am the best mother in the world. And I give it up. Don't leave me! Don't go! ...I must say what I feel and think in some way--it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

I need to test my meddle. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good. But what is one to do? Things can get out of control so quickly, and any small change can send life reeling toward chaos. Hysterical, I need to be tied down. It's for my own good. My husband calls the authorities he is worried about the gun that he gave me as a gift, when he loved me. He is concerned for my well-being and is knowledgeable about my psychological state. He is rational, he knows best. My man ties me down, he drives me away with sirens blaring, he tells me everything's OK, he checks me into the hospital, he gives me drugs he calls me "baby" he calls his lawyer, he changes the constitution against me, he is the school principal, he is the president, he is the doctor he is the father, The Man, my lover. I live onlyto please him.

I have removed the silicone implants, I have sworn off botox and willed myself to face torture before being the life of the party. Three hundred men could not stop me from leaving this place. If this is Britney's fate, this is my fate.

"Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored." -George Saunders
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(all italicized quotes from Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (1899)