lights dim and the camera on the actor's face goes slightly out of focus. key posing of the eyebrows and well-timed music indicate that the character is going on an existential journey, and the unwitting viewer has the choice of either tagging along for the introspection or heading to the snack bar for a different type of self-indulgence (the introspection, however, will never induce a diabetic reaction).
the point, if i were to have one, is that birthdays have a tendency to make people like these celluloid phantoms--existential and ridiculous. i simply cannot do it today. i am too...fizzy, too buoyant, too...too. it is ridiculous and spineless to contemplate with anything but the carbonated heart that i carry with me daily. to attempt to divine some sort of depth by using pretentious melancholy as the rod is a slap in the face to all the grace and charm and...love that the world has seemingly firehosed into my life.
who can argue with the fact that the very first face i got to see today was one of my favorites of all time? that kind of start to any day suggests either a day held aloft by happenstance, or else doomed by the potential for falling. i chose to grab the hands of optimism as it spun me one-two-three-two-two-three-three-two-three-waltzing into the rest of the day.
...i was duly rewarded.
i waltzed into a delicious lunch, spun dizzily back to my mother, and chiseled open my skull and poured the contents into my sketchbook (shaking off rust from fingers and pencils as i did so). exhausted, i gathered my skirts and flounced down in front of my computer...a digital tide of warmth and love buoyed and battered me around in the form of words (my favorite dish) from my past, my present, and my future. i always joke that i can't have children because i already have 165 of them. in each message i could hear their voices, like memories trapped in jars to e-e-e-e-e-e-ase open when i need reminding why i teach.
i spent some time considering my future; after deliberation and agonizing i signed the contract to pull me back west, fueled by tendrils of words timidly sent by my students. at the same time, some of the same timid sort of vines snaked their way around an ankle to pull my roots into the ground and make me stay here, and i have realized that complaining about the "dilemma" (as usual, the quotes are purely facetious) is stupid, stupid, stupid. honestly, bitching about having to choose between two situations i would love is like moaning that there isn't enough room in my wallet for my miiiiiilllllllliiiooooooonnnnsss of dollars. pfffft.
the day has also been tinged with a little sadness--my twin brother is not here. he has always provided a buffer so that the itchy, twitch-inducing spotlight doesn't focus only on me. more than that, he has grown into the kind of human being i always tell my friends i wish i could surround myself with. though he didn't make it home, i got to end my day talking to him (and some other of my favorite faces).
so now...the sky is cotton-candy pinking; the late-night spiders, full and fat, have evacuated their webs for the night; my cat is sleeping in the hollowed-out space behind my ankle; another birthday is over. it's bedtime. sleep is tugging on my eyelid-windowshades. i have wrapped myself in the following words:
"my reaction(s) to what happens I cannot predict. I am adrift, and I don't know if I'm close to home or not"
these words have tucked me in and started the lullaby. goodnight, my lovelies...
for anthony, the word of the day is palladian.
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