The extra effort of living-right-this-second
or, Substack updates as emotional decompression
I didn’t mean to start out so dramatically. I’ve been planning more New Orleans entries in the back of my head, but I haven’t written them down, because just as I start to organize my ideas, I get inordinantly sad again. I was truly fucking spoiled by a week of walking around fully accepted by my society, and I’ve got less tolerance for this one now. It’s not that anyone in San Francisco has been hostile or stand-offish — in fact, I was complimented on my shoes at the gym just the other day, and the sweet young woman at the movie theater ticket counter liked my hair — but it’s me, being here, feeling trapped. I mean, do you even know what movie I was seeing that day? Puss in Boots. Which I do not have a history of planning for or looking forward to, but I was going crazy with the anxiety of uncertainty and, since I had missed the time table to see M3gan for a fourth time (yeah that’s right) I decided to watch Antonio Banderas be an oddly-sexy cartoon cat. I’m not fully comfortable with how that works but it was a genuinely funny and heartwarming film that cast Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the coolest possible way. I recommend it, though I can’t speak for how it might register if you’re not facing internal tornadoes.
I went cough-cough back to work to make some money and that was overwhelming too: there’s this guy who’s been married for 16 years and the way he mantains his moral integrity while satisfying his Cassanova fantasies is that he utilizes the site that I offer my services through to find out what we like, we being the remote-courtesans who guide with our voices. He asks us what we want and then he takes the lead guiding us through our requested scenarios in impressive detail, and I admit he’s quite good, it’s just strange. The first thing he asked me when he called was, “What’s your story?” and I was a little caught off guard: “…What do you want to know?” So I talked in the broadest possible terms about my life and interests and then we got down to what I think about because that’s what he wanted to discuss, and at the end of the successful shared vision I thought, “Wow, I got paid for that. All right then.”
People were weird that day in ways I don’t feel like going into so I’ll just say that his call was well timed. And, as par the poll I took on the issue of what to tell you all about particular freelance gig, that’s all the detail I’ll give here. Some of you said yes you wanted details and some of you said you weren’t sure if you wanted details, and since I don’t know who’s who I don’t even know what questions to ask to find out what you do and don’t want details about. Suffice to say for the moment that, uh, business is good.
I’m in the middle of putting together some materials for writing-instructor-related short-term jobs that I can actually discuss in mixed company, but the anxiety I’ve been feeling for the past couple days has gripped my stomach so hard that it’s been difficult to focus. I’ve been revisiting past comforts: the 90’s film Empire Records, a favorite of my teenage years that I have a deeper appreciation for as an adult, the audio versions of Pamela Des Barres’ memoirs, which make such dazzling audioplays that I truly never tire of them, and all the episodes of Full House that involve the character of Gia, known to my generation has the enticing bad girl who got Stephanie Tanner into all kinds of spicy pickles.
Meanwhile, all across this long-crumbling nation of ours, there are MFA programs with countless futures in their hands and one of them is mine. This is what’s keeping me from being able to make this post into something bigger-than-me which is always the intention. I appear to be obsessing over my own internal state at the possible expense of your reading pleasure or synaptical fulfillment, and if that is the case, I apologize. It won’t be like this forever.
Of course, nothing is forever, we’re all mortal beings whose ultimate destiny is decay while—
Damn it, what’s with me this morning? I’ve actually never been happier to be alive, but I feel like I’ve got a weight on my head today. Thankfully, I’m headed to the gym later, and I have it on well-lived authority from this past Tuesday that there’s nothing that endorphin rush can’t fix. At least fix temporarily. But then everything is temporary, right?
I have no idea if it’s even possible for a reader to get anything out of this. But I’m sending it to you justy in case.
I hope your head is clearer than mine this week!
