In which many things Come Out

So here I am, and it is late. I feel like I once had inclinations towards being wise, towards having great discussions and being mindful in the world, of making changes, seeing improvements in people and whole places, of being Happy and living a Good Life with people I love. Sadly, I think I have now traded these ideals in for intriguing little episodes of Mythbusters, exotic fiction by Indian authors, and spending an entire afternoon at the mall shopping for Mei-Mei's new jeans.

This is a late post, and for me being up late is like being drunk. Remember that TLC life lesson: "Merlot and e-mail do not mix"? For me, staying up late has the same effects, all the stoppers are gone and I'm primed for free-flowing, more honest than you wanted but not quite as honest as the Real situation, stream of consciousness prose. It's like Being John Malkovitch without the edgy conceptualization, thought-provoking framing and academy award nominations. Yes, pizza.

This is a pretty blog, but I feel like I could count the people who read it on one hand. Perhaps this is only because the only people who comment I could count on one hand. Then again, I read many people's blogs on which I would never comment. This is what I tell myself as Consolation, a whole chapter, schema, and paradigm in the mind of me that grows and grows to quell the voice of dissatisfaction. Is it worth it to write to a few people? Sure, why not, you all are good people. You know who I'm talking too. I like you crazy kids. You are the Greatest. It's all for you.

My sister is leaving for England tomorrow for two weeks to do art outreach missions with hardened inner-city youth. This is so my missions trip. Why does it bother me so much that I can't go? Is this the subtle whisper of What I'm Supposed To Do With My Life, waving nonchalantly as it passes me by? Is this just a quiet longing for the lovely green hills and twisting, surprising streets and all the England once had for me? Maybe I am happy that for once I am fulfilling Big Sister Supremacy, that I get to do something before her, have something nicer than what she has. Maybe not. Maybe it makes me a little bit happy, but it certainly does not make me Happy.

I miss everyone, but only in that vague, ephemeral way that allows me to be angry about not hearing from People, but not to hold any kind of solid recollection of them in my mind to make me think that we might still be Friends. They don't exist that much, and the fragments that are left over exist in a kind of baseless hostility that never even happened, that I make up and make over while broiling under the muggy clouds while the humidity makes my hair frizz ever larger.

Dammit, I wish I was Clever. I want to be Clever like the Clever People who's stuff I read, the Clever People I stalk, but every time I try to be Clever I only end up sounding stupid and looking like I am trying too hard, mostly because I am trying too hard. You have to try hard to get anywhere in the world, if you sit still for even ten minutes you start backsliding into whatever it is that you don't want to be. You just can't try too hard, God forbid, because then you look like you're trying too hard and you'll never be Clever. Damn.

I got to work this week. I got to work for only one day, and I was doing a mass mailing so I must have spent 6 1/2 hours doing nothing but stuffing envelopes, and then a couple more hours filing. One day of work. Eight hours. I don't really want to go back. But I do. But I don't. Why do all the Grown-Ups hate their jobs? Do I have to become a Grown-Up who hates her job just trying to earn money to go to Nigeria even though I don't Want to go even though I want to go? I am not earning any money. Perhaps this means that I have no value, from a capitalist perspective. Perhaps this means I have no value from my perspective. And what about Mom? Don't even go there...

I keep wondering what it would be like to pray to God about my life and not just the lives of other people or giant socio-economic Situations or Causes. I wonder what it would be like to believe in the kind of God who is not Irrelevant, who might actually do something and muck about in the situations of my life, who might change things instead of just changing me or whatever bullshit stuff we say about that. I wonder what I would ask for. The first thing that I would ask for is that I could have friends, new ones who would know what is Really Going On here and who would ask me about my life and who I could go out for ice cream with and have a Very Silly Photo Shoot with me and have a really intense discussion where we actually started on some of the same pages. And also that my old friends wouldn't fall out of my head and my memories become distortions and my images become hostile for no good reason that I can find, that I wouldn't feel so extremely, utterly, very, very Alone. I would ask that I could know that the future holds something good, that I will be loved someday with love that I actually believe, that life will not be empty and directionless and aimless as it seems now that it must always be. Some people want to know how it will work out and where they are going and how life is going to be, but I don't need that. I just want a little, tiny, tiny promise, a spot of conviction that someday something I do is going to Mean Something, that I will find hearts to hold me into which I can pour a pitcherful of life, that I can look forward to a few rose petals on the garden walk and an Andes mint on my pillow. Pumpkins and chrysanthemums in the fall and insane hummingbirds all summer long. Those little piping birds on the beach and carnivalesque corndogs. And I do not mean these as little metonomys, to say some sappy thing about how if we can just find the little moments of happiness, we will always enjoy life. Hell no. That's for Dove chocolate to push, not me. I want more than a moment. I don't want much, maybe not too much, but I sure as hell want more than a moment.

But the full moon will always be my friend, and I will always shout "HELLO, MOON!" when she rises up in the sky, even if the skateboarders next door are out doing their tricks with their obnoxious floodlights and I am only out to make sure the dog goes pee. But there are no stars here. No stars up in that sky that is either cloaked in rainy clouds or shattered by ambient light. No stars. I hate living here. Houston is a horrible city and I don't care that it has el pan Bimbo and horchata flavored yogurt, and that the mangos are cheap and it's still 60 degrees in the winter. There are no stars here, and no snow, and hardly any trees, and no reliable farmstands, and no break from the summer heat, and no creeks and waterfalls to swim in, no forests to walk through, no soft serve custard at the gas station, no windy roads through the hills; everywhere is just more billboards and power lines. It scares me to think I might live here long enough to look at this place of angry drivers and strip malls with nostalgia. How could I ever want to return to a place where there were No Stars? And no parks and no lakes...nothing but endless suburbs littered with huge Baptist churches.

That's it. I'm done for the night. I guess this post was Honest. It's supposed to be very important to be Honest. I feel like this has all been directionless and too long and pretentious and whiny...and I am more satisfied with this than with anything I've written or tried to write in a very long time. Mmmm...catharsis. Or something like That.

S.