A Mighty Pageant Creature
Song of the Hour: Westfall by Okkervil River
I’m Down by Goldfinger (what the hell?)
I’ve been debating for the last 7 minutes whether to watch Lost, or write a post.
So I decided instead to try to write for 7 minutes, and see how that works out. I love ABC for putting up their episodes for free, rather than charging like NBC does.
I used to be able to say I only watched 2 shows– Lost and The Office. But for my b-day, I got Star Trek TNG, and Veronica Mars, not to mention my favorite Buffy season for Christmas (season 6, and I don’t give a damn if you don’t like it :) ). The pull to the magic box is stronger than ever… did I mention my subscription to Netflix? Other than realizing I am indeed the biggest geek ever, I know also that if I’m remotely academically disciplined it should take me many months to get through these seasons… I can’t make any promises. Secretly, I’m betting on two. That’s 9 seasons of television in 2 months. I need therapy.
No, seriously, I need therapy. There was a prank gone wrong last week that really got me thinking about it (for the record, ms. prankster, I know you’re reading and please don’t get going with the guilt again. it’s ok). I know I’ve bitched about spiders like every other post, their general wrongness, and the hospital expenses accrued to their biting, etc. But a mischievous link sent through google chat of a gianormous super-close up a jumping spider’s face with its numerous round creepy eyes and furriness and I have to stop describing it because it makes me picture it and my skin is crawling and I want to vomit and I’m freaking out all over again– ahem. Seriously. I have a problem. Rationally, I know it’s a bug. I know most of them are harmless bugs. But there is something about rows of eyes that Makes. Me. Crazy. I clicked on the link and it popped up and before I even consciously registered what it was I was 8 feet away from my chair and having a full on panic attack, and I think I kinda screamed I can’t remember. Then as per usual panic attack aftermath I was crying uncontrollably for purely biological para/sympathetic nervous system reasons which, of course, I find infuriating. For like 36 hours every time I closed my eyes I saw it and started thinking horrible things, as we do when lying alone in the dark.
This is ridiculous. I know that. It’s silly and irrational. Websurfing, I ran across a picture of an asian woman with her face doubled and it creeped me out and hurt my eyes and I couldn’t stop staring at it– it’s like your brain is trying to find the center of the face to focus on and it just can’t but it keeps trying– then I realized the 4 eyes reminded me of a spider (I know there are more than 4 but no one will tell me exactly how many there are and I refuse to count) and I I could not look at it anymore. Follow the link– is it just me? is it hard to look at?
Christ this is getting long. Point is, I think my phobia has officially hit debilitating levels. You see how long I can talk about it. I still haven’t seen the part of the HP & the Chamber of Secrets when they go into the woods and confront the beast; or the part when Gollum leads Frodo into that cave. Nor could I help Joss on the PS2 LOTR game when the hobbits had to fight it. Not mention the level of freak out at running across a picture in general. It’s weird that I would rather have a small, living spider in my hand than have to look at a close up of one in a photograph. Bizarre. Anyway, this is getting ridiculous. Point is, I’m contemplating a professional. The further into Moby Dick I get, the more i sympathize with Ahab and that is not i repeat not a good sign.
I took two tests this week. My math-for-idiots test was just that– for idiots. If I didn’t ace that I’m going to seek a lobotomy, b/c otherwise my brain is wasting space. The psych test I took today was insane. I didn’t think any of the multiple choice answers to choose from were correct– that’s not a good sign. Also, I drew a blank when trying to imagine mediating variables to explain a high correlation b/t religiosity and mental health. Ugh, and this is what I want to do with my life?
I’ve also been thinking about putting off grad school until Joss is older. No, I have no idea how to get by with a BA in English and another in Psych and still pay off loans, but there has to be a way. I know it doesn’t sound feasible but I feel like I am being a horrible mother by being so busy. And I know I could just slack off and get by with C’s and still get into some kind of grad program… but half-assing it doesn’t strike me as an reasonable compromise. I don’t know. What do you think?
As a parting thought, I was thinking yesterday about "being the envy of all your friends". My question came down to, why would anyone want that? What does one gets out of being envied? Some kind of status? A feeling of superiority? A smug smile on their face? Seriously, I thought about it forever, and I can’t figure it out. I mean, I know the ambition, I know the mindset, I can imagine the satisfaction, but it doesn’t make sense to me. It gains you nothing, but possible spite. How does it actually enrich your life? Because you can never know for sure. Anyway.
Oh– for those know my father, I want you to know we’ve hit a new level of communication, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Now that I’m 30, it seems, my father seems hesitant but willing to discuss issues of mature content with me. It also seems that his friend who is computer savvy on the "inn-teru-net" as he calls it, has for some reason googled my name. Where am I listed?
1. The Nightsound show as the nihilistic atheist co-host.
2. Stories printed/recorded with either too much cursing for conservative fundamentalist taste, or else an honest (therefore unflattering) account of my mother’s life and death.
3. My professor’s website , exhibiting my podcast about the thin thin line b/t martyrdom and masochism.
My super religious uncle asked me about the story, and I told him not to encourage my dad to read it due to the explicit description of my mom’s death. But there are a dozen reasons why i don’t want him to read it, really. It’s just the rough draft that got put up, so it could be worse, but it would be DETRIMENTAL in many many ways. My father said he wouldn’t read it, but he shows it to everyone and asks them what they think… ugh. He wouldn’t if he really knew what it was about. If you’re not familiar with the ways of fundamentalist christians, don’t worry about any of this. But this is an awfully unfortunate turn of events for me. All his friends are religious, and I can only imagine how they look at him when they’re done reading it.
My point originally was that my dad told me this …. fascinating story he wants me to start the book that we’re going to write together with (this is all his idea. Apparently they all say that I’m a decent writer and he now makes plans for us together). It’s about down east NC in the days of his youth. For example, back in the day he says the cost for a newborn’s circumcision was fifty cents, or a pint of moonshine. He told me the story of a poor country boy whose parents had neither, so he had to forego circumcision. When the boy was around 6, there was an freak episode in an outhouse with the boy and a rooster, roosters apparently making themselves at home in an outhouse, and a free, though accidental, circumcision after all. There’s more, oh , so much more. He wants me to write this book.
ok. I’m gonna watch lost. Thanks for putting up with the rambling,
love.
