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| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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The Demon Who Doesn't Spare the Details
So the Apartment of Sin erupted in high style last night. If Charleton Heston's Moses had chosen that moment to come down the mountain and been witness to the goings-on in the Apartment of Sin last night, he would've smashed all the tablets in dismay and left them to their party. Okay, actually I'm exaggerating a bit: they (Angelique, the Permanent Boy, and another couple) just came in very loudly, very drunk, very late. They woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I put on some Elvis Costello and read some Lewis Thomas and finally, finally got back to sleep around 4:00--just after deciding that I wasn't going to be going back to sleep so I may as well make a pot of coffee and take a shower. But I shouldn't complain too much about Angelique's Apartment of Sin, because she's awfully considerate for a 21-year-old hottie. I mean, she quieted her friends down last night after I pointedly put on the Elvis. And to be perfectly fair, she's rarely home anyway, and when she is her most annoying traits are the very occasional high heels on the wood floor and the somewhat more but still only occasional permanent and/or interim buddy fucking noises. I mean, at 21--and even now at 32--I was not--am not--even half as considerate as she is. I had anticipated a lot more noise and such when I moved in next door, but in retrospect she has been quite the ideal neighbor and I have turned out to be the loud, annoying neighbor. So I shouldn't complain. Only the Cramps from Hell are turning me into the unwilling Demon of Bitchiness. Ouch. In addition to the cramps and bitchiness, there is the constant wariness that accompanies the fear that I am going to bleed my way through every piece of clothing that I own. No wonder they call it the curse: It's a laundry nightmare. I swear, I don't know how many blood stains I've left on articles of clothing, not to mention chairs and car seats and such, over the years--and that was with a highly irregular period. I can't imagine being a regular bleeder. What a burden. And don't suggest tampons as little temporary blood dams, because those things are the work of the devil. I was raised to be a good Catholic girl and as an addition to the beliefs about sin and redemption and the catechism are all the ones about women and menstruation and shame, and in that little microcosm of morality is the belief that one might inadvertently lose one's virginity to a tampon which in turn might ultimately cause one to never be able to find a husband no matter how many appeals one made to St. Rita. Wait. Did I just reveal a Catholic upbringing? Well, sadly, yes, but in my own defense, I'd have to say that I'm lapsed. I'm so lapsed that I've nearly come full circle and have begun to believe in all the old myths again. I am so lapsed that what was left as seed--the vestiges of the religious rituals that I learned as a very little girl, the smell of burning frankincense that is pure God, the worn and comforting feel of the wood of the pews--has started to sprout again, like beautifully maddening dandelions in an otherwise perfect lawn, into the desire to witness it all again. But the truth is that you can never go home again: I'm so lapsed that I even read Augustine with the cynical eye of an academician, something I know that real, real and good, Catholics could never do. And I'm so lapsed that the only Bible I have anymore is a Gideon's that I stole from a motel room because I needed one for the Milton class. And there are other examples, but I'm not feeling like continuing to expose myself here, what with it being New Year's Eve--the greatest pagan holiday still celebrated with any relish in America. God, what is wrong with me today? I must feel a New Year's resolution-like need for confession or something. Now there's something I don't miss, the self-assembled parade of shame that confession always is. I do miss penance, though. I try to sneak in a little everyday, but it's never the same if it isn't a directive from a man who judges. I mean, how can you ever be sure that you are truly repentant if someone else doesn't measure it? And like that. Yes, it's New Year's Eve. I'm feeling very recovering Catholic in spirit and I have my period. And here I am bleeding for you all online. And if you were to invite me over, I'd probably bleed on something for you, some piece of antique furniture upholstered in white, very readily. So it's really best then, isn't it, that my wild New Year's Eve plans include dinner with Max and an early night at home, in bed with Walker Percy or J.D. Salinger or Salman Rushdie. In other words, I won't wait up for you. Happy New Year, my little demons.
More lies:
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