J-J-J-Jenny & the Bets,
I made a critical mistake last night before bed, having read your astute reply. That combined with some late evening writing and a particularly frustrating episode of GoT left my mind so wired I barely got a wink of sleep. As I write this, I am running on fumes and sheer piss-and-vinegar will, so forgive me my… well, inevitable inarticulocity.
Of course, before I really begin, I have an announcement to make:
*Clears throat*
Today marks my formal candidacy for mayor of Crazytown, USA.
Ask not what your existential crisis can do for you, ask what you can do for your existential crisis!
Don’t Let the Sky Fall Down On Me
I said Jenny & the Bets and now I’m doing an Elton John theme. I don’t make the rules here.
Oh, apocalypse. I’m really not the sky-is-falling type. I had enough of that kind of cynicism in my sordid youth. Now, I’ve emerged from my teen angst like an annoyingly positive phoenix from the ashes.
That doesn’t mean I’m not still dramatic as all get out.
The theater represents my social life, eh? I’ve mentioned this before, but I see my social calendar filling up more and more lately. And while I love every hour spent with friends and family, I get tired. I’m a reformed cynic, but I’ll never really shake the introvert I’ve been since childhood. I need to be alone with my thoughts or my circuits completely fry.
I really try to give my all to those in my immediate sphere. Honestly. Even on the days when I’m really tired. I want to be a wife, daughter, friend, and boss. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I just need… to be left the feck alone, you know?
Saturday Night’s All Right for Staying In
It’s around this point in my reply notes that I jotted down “bless your actual fart,” and I can’t remember what that was in reference to, but I stand by it. Bless you, my ferocious miniature pony.
Perhaps I was just marveling at how keen your analysis was. For instance, do I take refuge in my own company? Do I ever. I used to not like myself very much. Now? Hot damn, I love hanging out with me! Fun conversation, smooth music taste, even better taste in wine…
I say this all without a trace of conceit, by the way, because self-love is hard and I’m learning to own that shit a bit more each and every day.
One of the best things about being alone with myself is that I get to play in sandboxes of my very own making. It looks almost exactly like this except my teeth are longer:
Even when I’m totally alone I’m not lonely. I’ve got so many characters and different worlds floating around the ol’ nog-bog, it’s easy enough just to drift away into another realm sometimes. My dream is to get some of these realms and characters down on paper in a way that doesn’t utterly repulse people.
Hey! Maybe that’s where The Red Curtains of Ambition™ come into play…
Funeral for a Fiend/Love Lies Reaping
Your hashtag game is truly astounding. #TwinningAndSinning? I almost spit my seltzer.
When I was considering who this evil twin might represent, I was thinking more of the external. I.e. someone in my waking life. But here you’ve come, charging into my Meat Dome with your Freudian greatsword, riding a horse named Duality, and I’m… I’m shook.
The psychopomp was within me all along.
I should’ve seen this coming. As you know from the many many conversations we’ve had, I’m a huge advocate of painstaking self-reflection. After my most recent bout, I’ve been really focusing on my need to be more assertive in both professional and personal settings.
So, who knows? Maybe the twinsies are more like… Ego vs. Id? Civilized Conduct vs. Feral-Possum Impulse?
Tiny Destroyer
I won’t deny that this Tony Crisp fella sounds like a wise man. But “Tony Crisp” also sounds like the Christian name of one “Tony the Tiger,” doesn’t it? Sir Anthony Crisp!
Greetings from the Kellogg’s Pantheon, A.K.A. my tiny blue insane asylum on the hill. You know, grim reaping really seems like the hard way to mental expansion. Brown acid would have been easier. As it is…
Perhaps I am at odds with my impulses of creation and destruction, both in personal relationships and in creative life. Remember that sandbox I mentioned? When I don’t get enough time to play in there, I kind of freak out a little bit. I get snippy and overwhelmed. After enough time away, I feel so stoppered that when I finally find some alone time I don’t know what to do with it.
When I had this dream, I was dealing with a wicked case of writer’s block. Pressures from my daily life had me mentally fatigued and pretty short on imagination.
I’ve since looked that writer’s block–let’s call it… Lorelai Gilmore–dead in the eye and said, “GFY,” but at the time, I was definitely feeling emotionally vulnerable.
I think you hit on the main takeaway here: I’ve got to stick to my guns, whether it’s at work, when staring down a blank page, or while deciding on the fate of ailing middle-aged men.
Stay dreamy,
Anakenzie Skywonka