Thursday, October 19, 2006

Just f---ing write something.

A boot and turnip stew kind of week. You don't notice your socks don't match until you get there. The sun shines and there are intermittent hurricanes and you get a letter postmarked July 6th on October 19th. The 15 choice Canada Post phone menu awaits you and you don't, truly, want to crap on the postal carrier's day but hell - that's over three months - so you call and are thanked endlessly for snitching on the poor guy because the woman answering is working for a call centre and this might be taped for quality control.

The stuffing comes out of a relationship that matters. It's a one-armed rag doll that you keep carrying around anyway because you still love the doll and it's only one arm after all and you knew the stitches were loose. And you're angry and sad and empathetic - a whole mixture of emotions that generally equal no firm stand of any kind so you make most of a beautiful necklace then pack it in, go to bed and don't sleep again.

In the morning you apply eyeliner to fatique-mushroomed eyelids even though you can't quite focus your eyes. Dab bright orange lipstick in the vicinity of your mouth and Make A Brave Front. Spend the first of the morning teaching an incomprehensible software application to your next minimum wage victim I mean student staff member and find yourself peppy with exhaustion. "It's important," you tell her, after investigating an option that does nothing whatsoever, "that you understand this program is incomprehensible and doesn't actually work." You say it with genuine cheer. You send her off for a break.

During which you guzzle caffeinated beverages and blink stupidly at the sky, count the number of vans parked on the walking street in front of what will someday be Boston Pizza but is now a site swarming with Men and Their Noisy Machines. The pigeons dodder around your feet in fits of pigeon optomism. People = food.

You think, riding the bus, which is crammed beyond the safety point and smells like soured hope and unwashed babies, that your life is really, be honest, the pits and your life is, really, be honest, pretty great. And the fact that those conditions exist simultaneously and that you have not slept a full night in three days is somewhat confusing.

You take pictures of yourself in the present state of near collapse and muck around in Paint Shop Pro with them. You think about posting to your blog. And then, in a sleep-deprived fit of poor judgement, you do it.

17 comments:

herhimnbryn said...

Boots and turnips, one armed ragged dolls. Your words lj, your words weave magic. Youe observe and record with such insight. I was on that bus too!

It's Friday here already...sending you happy and relaxing weekend thoughts. Hope you get some sleep.
Oh and PS
0X to you too.

Anonymous said...

Aww shee-it!

You got turnips in your soup? Man, all I got is boots and unwashed babies in mine...

(sluurp)

Actually, heh, the babies make it kinda good.

Hang in babes, it's all sine waves. I've been hitting the trees on both sides of the Vengeance and Despair highway all week. Vroom! Beep Beep! We drive tough cars, don't we?

-marko

p.s. if we can redesignate pluto as a "dwarf planet", can we redesignate Saturn as a "flaming shitbrick"?

Zhoen said...

Glad you did. I'm having that kind of week and I am so tired of the suckage.

LJ said...

H..what kind of mottled magic, we wonder, but I can use the "xo", thank you. Even better, send me a plane ticket. I'll sit with dog for hours, I'll throw sticks if dog likes that.

M..We're driving? This is driving? I think we need safety checks. And "flaming shitbrick" is an excellent suggetion for renaming. I can tell people, "You are due for a Flaming Shitbrick return and while this will be Challenging, it will be a Growth Opportunity. Never mind that you feel like the ground just got sucked from under your feet, that is simply Opportunity Knocking." See why I don't have an active astrology practice.

"Suckage" (Z)'r' us, apparently. I read your last entry and empathize hugely - although unconscious bodies have not populated my day (so far)and I am free to contaminate objects.

Words for the day: Flaming Shitbrick and Suckage.

Oh goodness it cheers me no end to say those!

Marigoldie said...

Good stuff, LJ. I hear you.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the flaming shitbrick is coming my way as well. I had a job interview today and - are you ready? - they want me to talk an exam on advertising before my next interview. WTF? Do you think it will be one of those where you connect the terms with the definitions with lines? Am I allowed to use colored pencils? Can I answer in interpretive dance? Or sock puppets?

M - No wonder we never met. I drive my Depression Hummer on the Chaos and Trauma highway.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Excellent entry.

herhimnbryn said...

Hey.....give me mottled magic over no magic at all. The mottled stuff at least has a certain percentage of shiney stuff in there!:)

Darkmind said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Jess D'Zerts said...

Guffaw! (Dammit, darkmind, don't make me laugh at LJ's booty-&-underground-vegetable week! ...aw, what the hell...)

Nice work on the portraits, LJ. Did you use only filters that are built into PSP or have you added some others?

What's up with that sleep thing? Same here, some wide-awake nights. Can we blame that on the flaming shitbrick? I finally resorted to benadryl.

Yay, it's Friday...

LJ said...

Thanks, M. We've all been there, huh? Well, not there, exactly - but somewhere like it in our own emotional area code.

KD..Maybe you could make paper doll answers by cutting up your university degrees? It's a thought.
Although I must confess, I really like the options "interpretive dance" and "sock puppets."

DM. You crack me up. You may be the only person who made that particular substitution but that makes for an original comment, doesn't it. Not to mention a snort of laughter from me.

JD'Z...Sleep? Trying NOT to take Adivan. I'm addicted to a very very small dose at night. Don't sleep without it. And of course, it's the Flaming Shitbrick, too.
PSP answer. Ummm. Let me see. I bumped the saturation twice. I used several lighting effects one on top of the other, used two painting (art media) effects (I always reduce the intensity, brush strokes etc.), selected areas and dumped a graduated color over them,
and ?? I never remember the process. I just hack around until I get something...sometimes what I get is a scary mess.

LJ said...

Not jealous, sweetie, please.
Hugs back to you.

phlegmfatale said...

...and there you are: cute again! You can't hide your beauty. Sometimes your description of a day in your life makes me feel like you've been peeking at mine.

Darkmind said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mary said...

(o)

chuck said...

BOOT and turnip stew: now THAT is funny!

Teri said...

love your imagery, always. that is such a lovely moment - if I've read you right - when you're exhausted and forlorn but you have a falsh of ah, life is good.
xo