The Carousel

Current Mood: The girls in circles and circles and circles again

Here I am. I know how hard my absence has been on all of you. I'm like the blog-writing equivalent of a dead-beat dad. And I'm showing up now out of the blue with tickets to the carnival and a million, shiny excuses. I come bearing gifts. And you just can't stay mad at me, no matter how hard you try, because....because....just because.

I know it's not because of love. Well maybe for some of you it is. This is always amazing to me: discovering that I am loved, even a little bit. It can't be an easy thing to do, loving a person with such a heart, so full of hate, a mind weighed down with leaden bullets of despair, ceasingly complaining, ever moaning, begrudging every single smile.

To some of you I matter for different reasons, I suppose. It feels good to matter at all. To figure in the equation. To curl up in my niche in the universe like a psycho fetus hacking away at the cord. I'm fucked up bad in a good way. And you like that about me. Because you're fucked up too.

Don't be offended by my assumptions. Consider the source. Maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. You are the pristine picture of mental health. There is not a single item in the the DSM-V that applies to you. Your Rorschach inkblot interpretations are all puppy dogs and rainbows. You would have punched Milgram right in his smug face for asking you to shock someone just for messing up fucking word pairs. I'm Not Okay, You're okay.

But I believe that we all got on a bloody carousel the day we were born. We came out of our mother's bodies (upside down) screaming at the top of our lungs. Why were we screaming? Because we knew something bad was coming up, innately, deep in the pit of our bellies. Round and round the horses go, as we sit on their uncomfortable saddles, with smiles plastered on our faces, nausea brewing in our sick souls, and holding on until our fingers bleed, praying for it all to stop. But at the same time knowing that the end of the ride will mean the end of us.

I don't mean to discount the pleasures that living affords us. But even pleasure has its price, as my expanding hips and waistline surely attest to. The author of that book, The Power of Now, tells me to stop considering the past and contemplating the future so intensely. To experience each moment as a gift, no matter how painful, annoying, uncomfortable it may be. He asks me to live each moment as if I chose the experience, the sensation, the feeling and to not judge any part of it. Which is a lie I will tell myself. He is asking me to stop the carousel with my own mind. That is the hardest thing anyone has ever asked me to do.

This is the only way to be healthy, he asserts. To stop abusing the gift of thought, which I do by using my thoughts to torment my soul so horribly. This makes perfect sense when I consider it honestly.

I'm leaving for the shore tomorrow, so again I will be absent. That is a good excuse. I'm sort of miserable about the beach sometimes, with all the sand and the seagulls and having to wear a garment that pretty much lets every eyeball know that I've been eating too much the past six months. Fuck it. I've been to a special kind of hell the past six months too. Sometimes a bowl of ice cream with painkiller sprinkles was the only thing that made me feel better. I don't have to prove shit to anyone. Anyway you all know that I can starve if I wanted to; you've seen me do it. I just don't care to use that particular "super power" anymore. Because it's moronic.

You know what else is moronic? The following two phrases:

I'm scared of clowns.

I hate hospitals.

I know this is completely off topic. Although there really isn't a topic to this blog when I stop to think about it. But it really makes me want to pull out my own eardrums with a pair of tweezers when I hear either of these phrases come out of any mouth at any time.

When people say they are scared of clowns, they always say it as if that is going to be surprising somehow. Like, isn't it weird that I'm so afraid of weird men with paint all over their face, big red noses, and synthetic hair the color of which is never found in nature? And if that wasn't bad enough, the shoes which are too big, which is supposed to be funny but really just comes off looking like a really pitiful birth defect. My point is, there is nothing about a clown that isn't scary. Everyone knows this. And ever since Pennywise, with his sharp, bloodstained teeth, said "They all float down here" and scooted around on that unicycle in the antique photograph, isn't everyone creeped out by the whole lot of clowns? The only person I have ever met that isn't effected by clowns is my granny, who actually paints pictures of clowns and hangs them on her wall. I knew she was in league with the devil ever since I first saw that. So I'm not disputing the fact that the idea of clowns is one spawned from the bowels of hell. I just think that some of the men who dress as clowns for birthdays and such are really just trying to make a bleak living and don't warrant our fear. So when I hear someone say, "I'm so scared of clowns - I have to leave this birthday party", I call bull shit because unless the guy has blood dripping off of his teeth he is just a man in a creepy suit. And I really hate when people think they are saying something so unique, when a billion stupid people before them have said that very same stupid thing.

As for anyone who says "I hate hospitals". Show me a person who LOVES hospitals and I won't punch you in the face.

And on that delightful note, I say goodbye. I know you will wait with bated breath for the next installment of Gwen's random thoughts. Or maybe you couldn't care less. I don't know. I don't care because I'm going on vacation and will be drinking cocktails at 11 am. And you are jealous.