I don’t think I really qualified what a hell trip the trip to the shrink was. Aside from being a 15 minute walk away when we found out my appointment had been cancelled and we had done all of that for nothing. That was where we turned on each other.
But the bus ride. Man, it was beyond the normal awful than just the usual I’m-surrounded-by-people thing. There was so much open hate. People aren’t afraid to confront each other anymore. There’s no side-eye and heavy sighs, there’s loud, snarky comments and hateful words. I’ve never seen people like that. It wasn’t a particularly hot or cold day, really quite nice. The bus was running on time. So it was just everyone taking out their personal shit on strangers. It was kind of terrifying.
And the guy across from me must have been from NYC, he had the “manspreading” down to a science, plus, he was sitting sideways in his seat. So when I went to get out (and was still having trouble with making my legs work and had to step down out of my seat), and my legs failed me, when I started to fall, it was right into this dude’s khaki crotch. Again, I caught myself at the last second, and scurried off the bus, while Doc almost got into a fist fight with a very ignorant man who I will just say supported some unfortunate stereotypes.
I was finally able to explain to Doc today, as he nagged at me about exercising and working out and walking the dog, that it wasn’t a physical thing. Sure, it manifested physically, but it came from my brain.
Bottom line: my mind has far too much control over my body. With the cracked rib pain, the sciatica that disappears when I finally sit down and paint, the legs that won’t move. I thought I was looking forward to my appointment Friday, apparently, a part of me wasn’t. And that part was in control.
To be honest? I find that terrifying. That my body can, and apparently will, mimic injury or disability, when my mind is not in tune with what I am doing, can’t be anything other than terrifying. That wasn’t cool Friday. Still, all I can see is the grill of that white Nissan with the driver so shocked at what almost happened in front of her car that she didn’t even notice she had the light. I close my eyes, and there is the grill. Doc says, get over it. That’s funny, Doc’s illnesses have actual physical causes. He doesn’t understand what it is to drag your leg behind you because you can’t get it to work one second, and then be power marching the next because you are pissed and you just want to get away from your partner. That’s how quick it switched off.
I don’t think he gets the significance of that.
On another subject . . .
I sometimes wonder about an afterlife. As a kid, I was always partial to the Mormon’s 3 levels of Heaven deal. Because I thought that one heaven had to be a really crowded place; but with 3 levels of heaven, you don’t have such the overcrowding problem, yet. And they only allowed Mormons, and there were no such thing as “death bed confessions” where you could get “saved” or “right with Jesus” at the end. So, I figured, fewer angels to hang around with, better chance at being left alone for eternity. Unfortunately, I was drawn to the lowest level of heaven that was lit only by the stars. I thought that sounded pretty cool. I always thought that if it was a real heaven, you’d be able to choose your own light.
But I wonder about an afterlife, because I want to be a ghost. I don’t want to mess around with people. I just want to go places and see things and not have to be a part of the scenery. That sounds like a lovely way to spend an eternity. On the other hand, having to serve the whims of someone named “Minerva” who liked to burn blessed candles, would suck balls. Her, I would fuck with.
Which reminds me, have you ever seen the episode of “Kitchen Nightmares” where Gordon goes to a beach shack kind of place and they have a psychic doing readings during dinner? He has her do a reading on the restaurant and while she is doing it, he is playing with her crystal ball, which, at one point, he picks up and licks. Yes, you read that right, he licked her crystal ball. Just in case you were wondering if he did the initial meal reviews sober. I knew he couldn’t. One can only handle so much bad food while sober, then you have to take “measures”. That is my favorite episode, and only for that scene. The rest of the episode is pretty dull and stupid. The make-over is lame, the drama is lame, the new menu is especially lame. But he licked the woman’s crystal ball!
Crazy cooking shit. Like, somewhere, there is footage of Julia Childs gleefully tossing a raw turkey over her shoulder. I haven’t found it, but I’ve heard it, I was in the bathroom of my parent’s room when it was on TV and my mom was narrating the action to me. She nearly exploded when Julia tossed the old turkey. I’m not even sure anymore what the point was, maybe throwing off the conventions of a typical American Thanksgiving meal? It was the 70’s. French decorum or not, she was probably tripping.
Also among Chef-insanity is Jamie Oliver on Top Gear, in the back of his VW camper van making a salad while the Stig drives round the track at speed. That is classic. Jamie and his salad get thrown around the back of that van like a rag doll with confetti.
And then there is pretty much every episode ever made by the Galloping Gourmet. And unfortunately for his wife, appearances aside, I do believe he was sober for his episodes. He was just a big, gangly , British goofball who was also a great cook and believed in real ingredients, like Julia did. With Gordon and Jamie, you get all manner of insane flavor profiles and weird dishes. Give me the classics, high fat, please. Toss that turkey over your shoulder and bring out a big, fat goose. Let’s do this right.
Maybe if I was a ghost, I would go around fixing people’s food. Or leaving recipes behind. I would gather other ghosts. We would be Chefnonymous. We would leave recipes in random places and spice food and fix lumpy roux. We would harass vegans by putting meat in their food, or maybe just milk or eggs. Meat can fuck a vegan up, if they are true to their diet. I don’t want to do that. Just teach them the joy of a proper baked mac and cheese. They would cross over. At least to the cheese and milk eating side.
“Scorpion” tore me apart tonight. Why Sylvester? Really? Walter gets his rocket. Toby gets his gambling money and a day job. Happy gets her father back. Paige gets her priorities straight and help with her son. Cabe gets to live out the father/son thing he never had with Walter. And up until this season, Sylvester was getting all of the validation that he never got as a child, plus he was finally able to live out his childhood, now having the funds to collect Super Fun Boy items. So why tear it all away from Sylvester? Walter, a loss, sure. But does he really feel it? Or will he push it down until the inevitable explosion he will eventually have? But Sylvester, why? Not nice, writer guys, not nice at all. Sylvester was the most fragile of them all.
And that’s a wrap for now. I have some graphics work to get done. Then I have to try to wake Doc up so we can do some transplanting and moving around of things. We’ve decided to keep Arora for another cycle and use her as the mother plant. Her clones are incredibly strong. Cut from curly branches with clusters of exceptionally small leaves, I was plotting an army of bushy, tiny leaved plants. Nature fooled me. The branches straightened up and spawned really nice, big leaves. All of them are ready to transplant now. So, she will be the Strawberry Cough mother plant, my Arora. And we have to figure out if we’re raising a clone to be a Groot mother, or if we are keeping the current Groot mother in veg until we get another round of clones from it. And then there’s the regular Strawberry’s. It’s only a few plants, we just try to keep a variety. And in the cloner, they don’t count as plants yet.
I will be getting some great sticks out of this. I have to get some pots, and about 10 pounds of small river rocks. The next one I do will be covered in silver leaf, and then covered in black Futhark Runes, or Norse Runes, the language of my people, so long ago. I may put some words on there as easter eggs, I’ve found a couple of very nice online translators. So, that is second stick. And that will be after my dead computer, Scout, has been replaced and I can stream again. I promise it won’t be suck a clusterfuck the next time around. I just don’t know which of the sticks I’m going to use. Two are my height (lights too high, got some stretch), and the rest are short and bushy. And it’s hard to tell what they will look like once the foliage is gone. And the little stems and such. I got at them like bonsai trees. I have a display in my living room of three sticks, all cut from the pots. I spray painted two of them a clear blue, and the other not at all. Filled a vase with pearl necklaces from Mardi Gras and tied a gold bow around it and stuck the stems in. It’s my favorite piece. Though I will like it better when the bow is gone and I have silver leafed and aged it some.
So, Sticks will be a series, and Sticks will be for sale. Though shipping Sticks is going to be weird. I’ll just take it into the UPS store and say, “Do your worst.” That’s kind of my approach to getting my art framed at a place like Michaels. Taking it in and just saying, “Ok, go.”
I have decided to submit my poetry to some places. Some of the places on my list offer readings, for a fee, of your poetry manuscript before telling you no. I don’t really have the money to do that. So, I guess I’d better sort my poetry and do a little editing. Submission deadlines for the year are coming up. I’m only submitting what I already have, I’m not writing anything new for this. It’s too late in the year. But there is one place that seeks Judeo-Islamic-Christian poetry, which I have a couple of. Maybe three. So I can throw those together and mail them off. I even have Xmas labels that I made and printed out today. I knew those labels would come in handy when I stole them from my tedious office job that cheated me out of $4 an hour as a temp.
So, what do you think of the new colors, new header? Are you having any problems, besides the damn 404 messages all over the place? You should not have to login to read entire journal entries, if you are being asked to do that, please let me know, and I will try to find the root of the problem. In fact, if you experience any problems, lagging, things not loading, anything, let me know. I’m always logged in when on the site, so it is always on its best behaviour for me. I hear it’s doing weird things for you guys. As far as loading time for the slideshow images, I am working on optimizing, let me know if you notice a difference. This place is for you guys, that’s why I’m trying to make it perfect. Even if you don’t see any changes, there is a BIG backside to this that I am working on/in constantly. I mean it, my site traffic has spiked, and it is all from me. I am out-viewing the hackerbots (DRINK).
