Sinister: these colors you see were picked in advance by some careful hand with an absolute concept of beauty.

[dagnyrae]

notes:

*eileen wrote the kind of post that made me join and
come back. thanks for that. this post will pale in
comparison.

further commentary: they say that when you lose a part
of yourself -- a limb, perhaps, or a fingertip -- you
still feel it, even though it's no longer there. i
think we feel this way about all parts of ourselves,
physical or emotional; the funny thing about it,
though, is that all we have from day one until the
very end is what we were born with, what was always
there. most emotions, or emotional attachments are not
like that -- we create them ourselves. and when we
lose one, we feel the pain of loss quite purely; we
know it isn't there, and we doubt whether it ever
really was. we don't feel like we still have that
missing part; it is just gone.

perhaps we can only truly lose those parts of
ourselves that were always there, those fingers and
toes and inclinations with which we were born. we
cannot make additional limbs or fingers, though some
days we might like to, and have them feel real and
right. we can only adapt in what ways we know how and
know, when some emotional attachment is severed, that
that raw, freshly unadorned place in us is like an
outlet on a wall, waiting for a new plug to be
inserted, a new use. we all have those little holes to
be filled when born, and, at that time, we have, too,
a specific mold for which plugs must fit. we cannot
force keys or forks or those little lite-brite pegs
into our outlets without getting shocked. 

when we lose what we create, we must be comforted
knowing that we can always create more with what we
have, and have coming.

*ian said he hoped that one day, people would still be
twee. or something like that. i'd imagine if someone
were to walk around my town carrying a teddy bear, of
any size, he would be five, or considered 'odd.' i
embrace oddities. i try to celebrate mine. and while
sometimes overwhelming tweeness annoys me, i am that,
i suppose, and i hope that everyone everywhere will
someday retain that capacity to hold a teddy bear in
public, which is just as good as saying i hope
everyone will be able to remember what it was like to
see the world colored by something more than things
like war or images of what we are supposed to be in
order to be deemed heroic and right.

*music, in any form, should be the proper center of
everything. if it comes from conversation or radios or
mtv or a list, to dance and to sing without form is to
be happy for a moment. i sing when i write, and i
imagine that sometimes i sing always, even when
sleeping or brushing my teeth or kissing some stranger
in the basement of a house at a party. 

*elizabeth should buy light blue knee socks. i myself
am wearing some right now, even though the cold
outside warrants full stockings, and i wonder that i
never managed to enjoy these when i was small. well.
smaller.

***

a thrift store in town closed this weekend, and i
didn't know until today, when i went there to buy a
dress, and found the windows covered with wide sheets
of white paper. later, i heard the salvation army had
bought the building, fired all the workers and sold
the clothes and sundry goods inside at 75 percent off
over the weekend.

now i imagine fifteen or twenty people at home, fired
and looking for new jobs two weeks before christmas
thanks to, of all things, the salvation army.

perhaps they can get jobs ringing those bells beside
red buckets, raising money to help the needy through
the charitable efforts of....oh. the salvation army.

it's on days like these, with news like this, that i
wonder about people and our inherent senses of right
and wrong, animosity and goodwill. business versus
pleasure. science versus romance. or something like
that.

***

for two years i was enamoured with a certain boy who i
could find throughout the week at a certain coffee
shop in town. he poured my tea and i flashed toothy
smiles and i thought all would be well if i waited it
out long enough. 

and one day not so very long ago, he and i sat on his
porch, enclosed by a screen, on a couch with a bottle
of wine and a pack of camel lights. he lit my
cigarettes and i soothed his ego, and, in the end, he
took my hand and led me inside without saying much.


three days later, he said he hadn't meant it. he was
drunk, of course, and i, like i generally do, read
into things. gave meanings where there were none.

i tried to get over it. in traditional girl fashion, i
and my best friend got together over smokes and drinks
and dissected, found all the asshole qualities with
singleton glee and damned fuckwits worldwide.

a few nights ago, at a party i chose not to attend,
she and the boy kissed. and kissed. and kissed more.

there is a date. that, apparently, will not be a
"date," per se, just a jumping off dinner for
discussion of friendship betwixt said parties. 

she won't care, they said of me. she'll understand.
she loves us. she'll be ok.

and so here i am, forty-eight hours later, wondering
why it's ok to shit on someone you say you love in
your own attempts at happiness. why, because that
person loves you, you can assume that all will be
forgiven out of love and the mutual human goal of
attaining such happinesses.

i'm not ok.

i don't understand.

and i feel as though i should.

but now, through an act i did not create, nor would
have chosen, i have lost something -- not necessarily
a complete part, but a fraction of what i thought was
a whole, honest, unconditional belief.

i thought people meant the things they said. and the
things for which they stood.


perhaps, because i do mean the things i say, because i
have the integrity of a non-falsified belief system, i
am the minority after all.


even the salvation army embraces hypocrisy these days.


*rae



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