To Serve Man

This is what happens when you're in a bad mood, stressed, and have writer's block.

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8:45PM

I declared this week "What is Love?" week on my blog, which was really a dumb ass idea. Since I obviously have no idea what love is, I can't really talk about it then, can I? Huh? HUH?

There are only so many posts (one, really) where I can a.) talk about how I've never been in love and b.) realize that I have no idea what the hell love is.

This really makes me want to write a post about how I'm going to turn into "that woman". You know, the one that you see in the supermarket with dream catcher earrings, talking really loud to herself, then directing questions to passersby, laughing hysterically before the passersby even finishe a sympathetic answer, loading up the cart with 25 cans of Chicken Corn Chowder soup which she will eat at home alone later that evening while watching a Monk marathon.

But then I realized I've already written that post. About four times now.

Fuuuucckkk....
Am I really that boring?

That I not only have no idea what love is, I also have nothing to write about?

Great. So now, this leaves me sitting here in my underwear, with a tumbler of Jameson, the Tivo on pause for the last 30 minutes while I not only contemplate writing, I'm contemplate my whole existence.

Oh, I know!

Maybe I'll text a couple of ex-boyfriends and see if that does anything. I'll be right back and keep you updated....

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So needless to say, I AM that boring. The only texting I did, was send my recent ex who I still talk to every day, a photo of my reflection in the bathtub metal nobby thing (what the hell is it called?) because I looked retarded in it. Then I went to bed at 10:30PM.

I was going to put the picture up cause it's PG, but I look like the bad dude in that Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man". You know, the one where these aliens come to Earth acting all nice and E.T.-like, telling everyone to move to their paradise-like planet, but what they really want to do is use their cookbooks called "To Serve Man". Yep, you got it. They are going to eat YOU and that just freaks me out way too much.

Imagine this dude looking back at you in the tub. IMAGINE IT!

F it.

Here it is.

SEE?

Look!

LOOK AT IT!

I look like I'm secretly tricking you into moving to my planet so I can eat you later on.

That smug grin...

Happy that "What is Love?" week is officially over. I obviously can't handle it.

Come on Baby in Our Dreams, We Can Live Our Misbehavior

I love the way my Mother always makes me feel like a champion. I love Austin. I love having a conversation with my friend that feels like I just finished a 10k race. I love beets (One time I thought I fell in love with one...it's a long story. No drugs or alcohol were involved). I love our Dad/Daughter adventures. I love my Pee-Wee Herman doll even though his voice box is broken and he talks like he's on huffers. I love sourdough bread with butter and strawberry jam. I love my Grandmother's face. I love the way that juice boxes make me feel like a child again. I love L.A. for everything it's not. I love watching people interact with each other. I love desolate urban landscapes. I love lamp.

However, the one thing I've never felt is 100% honest to goodness, heart-wrenching, soul-twisting, poem-inducing, pant-peeing love.

So in honor of having had more of an emotional connection to a beet than a man, I'm declaring this week, "What is Love?" week on my blog. And yes, you have to do the head dance a la Roxbury Guys every time the phrase is written.

On the other hand, don't. It's kind of cheesy.

God, I love that movie (<--See? Another example of something I really love that is not a man.)

Now don't get me wrong, I've felt very strongly for various people before. Sure, I might have confused infatuation with a dude's cowboy boots and nunchucks as love. Or I might have done epic things like get drunk by myself on Venice Beach Boardwalk, call my boyfriend to entice him into one last hurrah before we broke up, pass out amongst the sea of homeless, and never get found by said boyfriend who actually came down to look for me. Yeah, maybe I did confuse one guy's obsession with being the reincarnation of James Joyce, always wearing a three piece wool suit in Southern California, and sticking his thumb in the dirt when he got mad as deep. I might have written my boyfriend's name in tiny pen on my fingernails.

The fact of the matter is, with some objectivity and hindsight, I've never been in love.

As a child of divorce, I would tell you I don't believe in it. In my mind, the only sort of love that exists is that of Elizabeth Taylors'. You have forty ex-husbands and you look fabulous until one day you don't. Then you're super lonely and eventually die child-less, asset-less, and husband-less. All your exes show up at your funeral, sitting next to their significantly younger wives, shaking their heads, saying, "If only she went to psychotherapy sooner."

However, as I've gotten older, I realize there is no glamor in having multiple ex-husbands, careers that perpetually keep you at a distance from people, and glass houses in the hills. You look down at the world below you, never really associating, never really understanding what it's really all about.

Hiding, in order to protect your heart, will only lead to being the Aunt with twenty-five cats named after soap opera characters, bed sores, and Neophobia.

Stayed tuned for tomorrow. The lovely M over at Blackberries to Apples and I will be guest posting on each other's blogs.

Snapshots of Fictional Wanting

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As I watch the sights that I've seen a million times before grow smaller and smaller in my rear view mirror, I think about all my failures in this city. And a boy. My failures in Los Angeles and failure with the boy are insignificant to the greater picture of this move, yet they're all I can think about.

We sat down on his couch and he picked up his guitar. I couldn't look at him anymore. He was winning me over, so I tried to keep my focus on a used piece of floss lying on the coffee table. There was only one sign that a man who once had money, fame, a family, and legions of people who looked up to him lived there. All over the apartment were pictures of the former Mr. W. Young Mr. W. Smiling Mr. W. Handsome Mr. W. All before the switch was flipped. I was drawn into the photos. I couldn't stop staring at him. Who is this strapping, vivacious young man in the picture and who is that frail, sad, old man sitting on the couch? The apartment was covered in drawing paper taped to the walls. In what looked like children's handwriting, the words "Don't give up" lined the room.

I'm trying to understand the psychological undertone of why I'd find someone who looks like Humbert Humbert attractive.

Why is it, that upon being asked what she wanted out of their frequent rendez-vous, she immediately did an impression of a deer caught in headlights and proceeded to zero in on the soup she was eating and exerting all energy on drumming up a witty comment about the root vegetables in her meal?

I sat back in my chair and digested all those forgotten feelings that I just unearthed.

Maybe this will explain some things.

Maybe I was meant to be with a smart, big nosed, categorizable idiot savant.

Maybe I should just stop fighting it and give in to what my inner child has always wanted.

Ok, so if you're a Jewish-looking scientist who finds dinosaurs, ghosts, or time travel titillating ...give me a call?

Just you and me, driving through the desert. I'm watching you, with your hand out the window, your sunglasses on though it was pitch black in the desert, and thinking there was no greater moment than this.

Imaginary Subway Love Story

That's my favorite book
He says
As I lower my wayfarers to take a look
You sit down in front of me
And say I don't want to be
Another casualty
Of this crazy
Lazy
Generation

Oh, you're one of them
I say
Let me see your
horn-rimmed
social-whimmed
vintage
drippage
bleeding heart

I've seen you before
In a dream
Or maybe more
Like a movie
Starring you and me
and what we could be
Out destiny
Amongst this calamity

You can be my Alvy Singer
I will be your Annie Hall
We will go to dive bars
And analyze ourselves
We'll name our child Circumstance
Just like the people on TV
We'll divorce though never marry
And live happily ever after
In our fort underneath the couch.