July 11, 2002 I have an online journal, don't I? Well, I am currently waiting for the phone to ring, but it does not seem to want to. Describing the events of the last two weeks will provide ample distraction.
6:30 pm
All my hair has not grown back yet, if you can believe it. My time has been divided between writing and spontaneous decorating enhancements. Allow me to explain. On the Fourth of July, I stayed home instead of putting myself through an uncomfortable family get-together in Connecticut. My brother had baked a batch of cookies the Keebler elves could not compete with. Slightly burnt they were, as I was before an hour passed. Acting on impulse, I took down the old ads and pictures covering one of my walls. For some reason, I thought it would be cool to articulate new wallcoverings with the principles of Feng Shui. The aforementioned wall is in the creativity and children section (or gua) of my room. White, yellow, art, round things, and creative representations of one's self enhance the flow of chi in this area. My guide was a book of my mother's with the most annoying title ever: Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life. And I did, at least the first part.
Ironically, it sat in a pile of other books on her night stand. Clutter is evil, if you ask the chi masters. My walls just happen to cluttered with glossy images and collages, but the words "adorned" or "accented" could be used to improve the connotation. I hung prints by M.C. Escher and Salvador Dali I received for my birthday, along with a slew of other images stashed in folders. It was weird, like I was completely away from my body. Automatic and detached, I glued the new pictures to construction paper so they would get brittle or stained by Fun-Tak, and hung them. For hours. When the creativity and children section was full, I moved onto the love and relationships section. Here I determined it was not wise to perpetuate my love affair Gellyroll pens. I plastered the wall with their ads in some tacit act of gratitude after winning a plethora of pens. Pens which write inconsistently and dry up faster than pop sluts, but are great when brand new. I recovered this wall too, until five hours went by. My parents had come home, my energy took a nose dive, and the cookie-induced altered state faded.
Then next day, I put new pictures under my window to resemble a themeless collage. It was my Mom's birthday, and we went out for Indian. Vegetarians (my parents) do not have much to choose from at other restaurants. My Mom got a new phone from me, a digital camera for my brother, and a cell phone for herself. It only took her a week to join the techno-savvy majority. In my opinion, cell phones are like LiveJournals. Everyone and their mother uses them to say a lot of nothing.
On Saturday, I saw Mark's band Uninunium rock the Westfield Baptist Church. They played second and left, taking most of the audience with them. Before the show, I made a collage. After, we went to a diner. There is the story of my life.
More cookies materialized Sunday, and my room's fame/reputation and prosperity sections were transformed. I actually covered more ground, er.. wall, but felt like I did less than Thursday. Much of it was contingent upon my balancing on a squishy couch with nothing but the wall to hold on to. My knees and lower back gave me hell for that.
Oh yeah, I also turned eighteen before the Feng Shui frenzy began. How easily I forget my legality. It felt just like turning seventeen, without the hangover. My Mom and I went to the city for lunch and ended up going to the Whitney Museum. The exhibits were modern, irreverent and subversive. My favorite photograph shown was an extreme close-up of a tongue licking an eyeball. There was also an exhibit containing the work of Joan Mitchell, a bitchy, iniquitous alcoholic who splattered paint on a canvas in a manner distorted enough to deem her an abstract expressionist. Think Pollock with brighter colors and less talent. The glowing reviews provoked a question: why were my four-year old finger paintings never glorified as abstract, expressive masterpieces? My Mom had five more patients to see, so I hopped in a cab and wondered around Times Square in the ninety-five degree heat. My kneecaps melted as I scoured a 42nd Street flea market and bought some overpriced alternative periodicals. The heat's intensity actually drove me to seek refuge in a Starbucks Frappachino. I took the bus home, and Adam and Val took me to Red Lobster for dinner. Then came cake, presents, and sleep.
This week has not been nearly as exciting. It has consisted largely of reading and cleaning and tossing and turning. One Soma is not enough to sedate a body accustomed to summer insomnia. My body is smarter than I am. It knows I do not have a job or classes to attend to. Therefore it resists my futile attempts to sleep like a normal human. Restless rest makes my joints hurt more, and intensifies any other symptoms, even introducing old ones. For this reason, my doctor prescribed Trazadone. It's an antidepressant used for cocaine addiction. I was prescribed it at fourteen and only tolerated the stuff for a month. If I remember correctly, it was like a ride on the Tilt-A-Whirl followed by a fourteen hour coma. What fun to look forward to! She also gave me a free sample of an herbal supplement called Alluna. It's a tablet containing valerian root and hops. She suggested it because I told her I get anxious when lying in bed not sleeping, beating myself up about not sleeping, and stressing over it to raise my heart rate and energize me. My job is to work out a cocktail capable of knocking me out without undesirable side effects. Great.
All this emphasis on the importance of maintaining a normal sleep cycle is far from soporific. In fact, it greets me with a gnawing desire to be nocturnal while I still can. Sleeping pills aren't worth my freedom, dammit.
