Zaar. According to the Internet-at-large, this track from
Peter Gabriel's
Passion is "written around traditional Egyptian rythms to ward off
evil spirits". I could use that
somma that beat on
my soundtrack, too, Mr.
Hossam Ramzy.
Something in me has been wrestling with
something else in me all day. I stepped into the
shower this morning, and the
inner turmoil (for which, my sloppy
gloss is, "
voices in my head") started. "This is going to be
one of those days", I remember thinking in my most objective self, over the
mental din.
Troubled. No more than any other day, I am tortured by my own
jealousy and
self-doubt. That "
something else in me" (see above) insists that this is
for my own good, and there's no
reasoning with an
emotional mechanism. It's true,
you can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being, and when the psycho is you talking to you, it's better if you can settle down enough for a nap. When I
do manage to silence the not-so-still, not-so-small voice of
hungry undead rage, I think things like "
Is it 3:00 yet?" "Shut your whiny
cakehole,
F.-!" and the ever-popular "
Get the fuck out of my office." I manage to smile and my face makes the motions of polite
small talk; that's perhaps when I most
forget myself and really feel
calm. There is a popular
snippet of
AA meditation that says "
we live in a world not of our own choosing"; that
resonates deeply with me, and I struggle to grok and cherish it
24/7.
Open. Eventually it is
lunchtime. I sit in my car on this lovely warm day, for maybe 20 minutes, then head to the
deli to buy some
lottery tickets. The soup of the day is "
Italian Wedding Soup", which I round out with a
Diet Coke. This, I consume at my desk, while I read the new
Scientific American issue. OK, I am calm then, too.
Before Night Falls. My
supervisor has to work a
double shift tomorrow, so he heads out to spend the rest of the day with his wife. One of the production
machine operators tells me a disturbing
story; in unrelated news, we agree that
Larry King is a wackadoo. I stop home, but I have a
Cinco de Mayo margarita
coming to me so I head right out again - to the local Mexican
TGIChainRestaurant. Some beer company, possibly
Corona, is sponsoring loud,
frat-mospheric festivities there, so I try out the
Applebee's next door instead. The
fresh-faced college girl server talks me into
today's special:
sizzling steak and deep-fried
shrimp. Dessert is
apple crisp (mostly buttery sweet "crisp", not much apple) and
espresso. I consider a
movie, but nothing is playing in the next half hour and I feel
too old to pump quarters into the arcade machines for 45 minutes. Besides,
Gladiator got a terrible review...
With This Love. After 2 margaritas, I really don't need more
alcohol: my emotions have been
riding me hard all day, and of course I know
alcohol is a depressant. With these facts safely
out-of-mind, I pick up a six of
Sam Adams Cherry Wheat and set about expending my daily allotment of votes. Eventually something melts me, like a memory of the "
Jesus sky" at my grandmothers'
funeral -
unbidden shafts of light rending dreary clouds.
Goodnight, you Princes of Nodes, you Kings of Everything2.