Rut

The cancer lurks secure and spreading where furtiveness hides in rows of decaying brick.
-- HP Lovecraft, "The Horror at Red Hook"

My state of torpor has increased to such a degree that I woke up the past few mornings with an alarm bell going off in my mind-- a loud, urgent reminder that sloth is a sin. I feel like a dying pile of flesh, trapped in a paralyzing cycle of indecision. I have become another lost and morally diseased person in a dirty neighborhood of drug dealers and addicts, though my crisis has to do with total confusion and exhaustion, rather than addiction. I feel trapped bodily in my own home, with no ability to envision an outside world outside wider in scope or possibility than the strip club or occasional church sanctuary. Lack of vision is an imprisoning force-- when paired with almost total surcease of energy, the effect is as disgusting as it is weighty.

When I walk down the block to buy food, I encounter people, some of whom I know and like, yet I can't seem to find connections with others or a regular schedule of work manageable anymore.

"When are you coming back to the church?" a tall young man asked me Sunday as I passed him on the street in front of the Pentecostal church near my home.

"I don't know. I have no excuse for not coming in anymore. I'm just lazy." I said without inflections or emotion, neglecting to add that I also feel tainted with the shame of working in a dishonorable profession.

In short: things are bad.

I've found that people in this world who stop contributing to the greater good and become trapped in their own egoic cycles of misery tend to fall into a rapid state of despair and decay (in that order). I don't want to be one of those people.

I am praying right now for a sign. I hope I am able to find a way to contribute to this world positively, and manage to escape this rut.

PS I am trying to avoid all potentially romantic scenarios, but it seems I haven't tried hard enough. Somehow I've managed to give two men my new phone number this week, and the sound of their various texts popping up on my phone is horrible-- like a recrimination for lack of integrity. I don't want to waste anyone's time, so I don't respond. I should have never let them have my information in the first place... that's what I get for meeting people from craigslist ads and the like-- texts from fast-talking lawyers in New Jersey who want to get me drunk on Grey Goose somewhere and film location scouts trying to tempt me to see "Transformers 2" in IMAX. Really? If those are the interests of people I currently attract, I'll just wish them well and go buy some books instead. Whatever other issues may be arising in my personal life, I really am 100% content being single right now.

PS The animal that best represents my current state of being is the naked mole rat:

So AMERICAN

"We may take the stories least like poetry as our guide to the truth"
-- Plutarch, "Parallel Lives"

The romance of poetry holds neither appeal nor ring of truth for me in these times of exhaustion. I long for plain words, comfort food, also to give and receive service impersonally and efficiently.

In fact, all I wanted/was able to do today (so far) was:

Read short stories as well as Ovid and Plutarch, clean my house, eat junk food and sleep. Again.



Around 3, feeling as gray and gloomy as the overcast sky, I shuffled slowly down the 2-block stretch of Broadway that is my particular stomping grounds for groceries and treats here in Brooklyn and bought myself a bag of vegan Doritos. A friend told me about them recently-- a new flavor blissfully produced sans milk. Since I haven't had Doritos in 14 years being able to eat them again is quite a treat-- it's a repeat of the joy I experienced a few months ago, when another helpful companion told me Oreos are now vegan also, and I devoured them on a daily basis, dunked in soy milk, for weeks. These discoveries neither aid me in my eternal quest to lose weight nor curb my bouts of binge-eating, but whatevs.

Somehow, eating this kind of food makes me feel so AMERICAN:

PS I smooshed an avocado as dip, after waking up this morning with an unbearable craving for one. The cause was a vivid dream I had last night, the gist of which involved a fellow dancer I know, recently come back to Tryst after a month in Brazil, lavishly rubbing my scalp with "avos", which may or may not be the word for avocados in Portuguese as well as Spanish. That's the word she used in my dream, anyway.

In reality, it would take more than an avocado to fix my hair woes. If my hair were a person, I'd drop 'bows on him/her. My track weave, which has undoubtedly been good for business because, surprise surprise, men generally like long hair better than short hair on strippers, has become an enormous source of annoyance. No matter how much I wash, dry and style my extensions, the sad truth is they have begun to smell musty and look ratty. Gross.

It makes me want to shave my head, give up trying to be "attractive" and get me to a nunnery.

I hate my fucking hair. 600 dollars and counting since late February and it still sucks.

PS The "Tin House" volume I'm reading was given to me by the Asian lawyer on our last date aka his birthday. That night, trumping my efforts at gift-giving (cookies I baked myself, fish I drew myself, a card, etc.) he gave *me* dozens of expensive presents, with the promise of a puppy the next day, but, truly, as wonderful as getting to know him was, it had to end. I was just not attracted to him, and he deserves a fabulous relationship with a loving woman who wants to be with him for all the right reasons. So I figured I'd just remove myself from the picture so she could show up in his life that much sooner-- his last couple of emails are still unanswered in my mailbox, ah well. God bless.

PS 2 Re: me reading a lot of Plutarch and Ovid lately-- I know I'm really in the doldrums when I start resorting to my comforting childhood refuge of snuggling under a blanket in the pouring rain and reading Greek/Roman mythology/history. When I also start making Cream of Wheat I know a sad call to my mother is inevitable. But I shouldn't worry her. I'm just a depressed person sometimes. She can't solve that one for me.

Solitude/Sleep Hallucinations/Narcolepsy/Champagne Room

"Dreams are jealous of being remembered; they dissipate instantly and angrily if you try to hold them. When newly awaked from lively dreams, we are so near them, still agitated by them, still in their sphere..."
--Emerson

This week my sleep disorder became almost unbearable. I felt so totally spent I could barely breathe. The advent of spring itself may have triggered it, for in my experience the spring rain is more soporific than any poppy. Dancing so much and dealing with the overload stemming from so much time spent in the ever-chaotic, sexually charged atmosphere of Tryst are also factors. Truly, it seemed my body was worn as thin as ancient, tattered lace, and, in a fit of active self-abandonment, I longed to clandestinely fold myself into a forgotten steamer trunk in our attic, thereafter to enjoy a few dusty decades (at least!) of delicious, sleepy solitude.

In short I wanted to dream and be alone.

Eventually, for good or ill, like a shipwrecked passenger tossed too long on battering waves I simply surrendered, allowing my miserable sense of gravity to sink me like a stone till, translucent with exhaustion, my ghost lay dark fathoms below, on the cold sand with all the other bottom-dwellers unable to get in the swim of life... life which I am nonetheless grateful to possess, in as much as a vessel of water can be said to possess the greater seas..

Though I tried to still my mind and listen to my inner voice, no great inspirations seized me; however, when I meditated with Megan Tuesday night, we both feel strange, helpful forces stirring immediately afterward.

So I've also been having my annual/sometimes-seasonal spate of weird sleep-related hallucinations, which are symptoms of the aforementioned low-grade narcolepsy that is, apparently, my endless cross to bear in this lifetime... what happens is the split second I wake from my dream I retain the image of a figure or object which last appeared in it to such a vivid degree that I believe it actually exists for a moment-- much like the imprint of the sun one gets after a bold, unwise glance skyward on a bright day. Monday night I awakened in alarm, quite sure my dream's star figure-- a strange monsieur (rotund, fatuous-- a plushly outfitted gentleman I felt I had seen in a Monet canvas that probably does not exist who was holding a canary in an ornate cage identical to the ceramic bird my mother sent, which I decided to display in a little metal lantern I bought at Pearl River Market, one of my favorite stores in New York) was in the room with me, demanding a sexual service of some sort I was unwilling to perform.



At least I didn't scream aloud this time, and was fortunately spared, also, the ordeal of waking a boy sharing my bed with my sleep issues, which make me seem insane at times, though I am not. Yet.

Insanity is a family tradition that hits most of my relatives at age 29 or so, after all...

This week I felt, indeed, so worn out and overwhelmed that I could not bear to work at the strip club for the first four days of the week. I decided to call in for a personal day, a first since I started working at Tryst nearly two months ago (the bout of laryngitis that rendered me genuinely unfit for two shifts awhile back was a different matter entirely).

Using manual labor and color therapy-- the only remotely effective measures for managing my narcolepsy of which I am aware, since pills rob me of all my creativity and are therefore off limits-- I painted my home, frustratingly-vexing-to-tape wainscoting and all, for two days straight. By the end of my second 12 hour day I was calling it "The Bataan Death March of painting" to myself, which just proves-- months of regular meditation aside-- that I have an extravagant amount of disgusting self- pity in reserve yet.

After more meditation and prayer I am absolutely sure such unwholesome tendencies/expressions of ego-based sentiment will eventually be shed from me in the manner of, say, toxins held deep in pockets of fatty tissue which, poisonous though they may be, do come to the surface and dissolve after faithful adherence to a fitness regiment.

When I went in Thursday I made a grand total of 75 dollars, due to my 50 dollar fine for skipping work Monday as well as the pouring rain, which always spells a miserable vibe and lack of customers at Tryst. Friday I was also doing poorly until five minutes before my shift was over, upon which a ridiculously drunken heating/air conditioning apprentice who deemed me "way too good-looking and sweet for this place" whisked me up to the champagne room for 3 hours, which meant I made about 750 instead of merely 300 for the day, and therefore the week, not counting that pathetic 75 from the day before.... he told me to get dressed for the last hour and offered to "get me out of this place".

I told him I wanted to be a stripper for a little while longer, but if he wanted to really do me a favor he could buy me a p-o-m-e-r-a-n-i-a-n (spelled for the benefit of the reminder text he was sending himself) puppy in red or blue... however, I doubt he'll be coming anywhere near the club after he sobers up enough to cringe over that 1500 credit card bill...

PS I'm not over it yet. I am spending a large portion of my Saturday afternoon napping, or would be if my downstairs neighbor's banda music wasn't ridiculously loud today.

Old Age/Narcolepsy/Owl

That the life of man is but a dream, many a man has surmised heretofore; and I, too, am everywhere pursued by this feeling.
--Goethe, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

Whether it's because I have a fever (again), or because I am just lately conducting my life as a sort of waking lucid dream, I find formerly harsh and immutable things soft, filmy and agreeable this evening.

Example:





I looked at my favorite birthday cards from the other day and came to terms with being a year older in a fairly peaceful manner. I tried to be grateful for the love the cards represent at the total exclusion of fretting over the old age they herald and very nearly succeeded. This is a big milestone. I have often thrown my birthday cards away as soon as they were opened. Hopefully that phase of childish (not to be confused with childlike) behavior is over.

Today is one of those days I could not fully wake up, no matter how hard I tried, until after 2pm. I had been up since 8, doing little chores and then periodically tumbling back to bed face-down, trying not to resort to drinking caffeine, and ultimatelly decided to be very happy about having a day off no matter how I spent it.

I remember initially hearing the word "narcolepsy" from a doctor's lips with a lot less trepidation than I had initially heard"clinical depression". That's the difference between 25 and 17, I suppose. These things all seem to work out in the end, and both have become livable conditions for me, even if medicine hasn't done me much lasting good. I wonder what it would be like to intimately know someone else who has a sleeping disorder. I have depressed friends, but their sleep patterns are normal. Maybe some day...

Megan and I meditated at her apartment this evening. Afterward my fever came back.


I drew this owl today. Lately I find drawing enjoyable again for the first time in years. I can't wait to get the rust off my all my latent creative faculties and really get in gear.

PS I hope I'm well enough to go to work tomorrow. Strippers don't get sick pay.

New Blonde Friend

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge."
--Voltaire

I hung out three times this week with my neighbor Megan. Strangely, although we lived in adjoining apartments and even shared a living room wall, we never met until the evening before I moved out. Luckily I only moved down the block.

Blonde and attractive in that hale, classically conservative Utah Mormon way (Her mother is a lapsed Mormon, her Father is a Swiss-born Catholic, and she was brought up Catholic in the heart of LDS territory-- with an endlessly prosletyzing extended Mormon family-- talk about alienation!) she is, to my shock, another virgin and writer. Most worthy of note are her moments of awkwardness and distance when it comes to personal sexual matters-- the very mirror of my own! Since I've had many more intimate experiences than she, I have also found myself-- for once-- possessed of more carnal knowledge than a girl of my acquaintance.

The two of us have begun a regular practice of meditation in my new home. I can already feel the positive effects of sharing extended moments of unbroken awareness with another person in such close proximity, and I relish her company. I find it very easy to pray for her as well as myself, and I have every expectation that we will effect great changes in our respective mind-states the more we dedicate ourselves to the practice.

Observing her behavior, I noticed an interesting tendency she has to absolutely obscure her sexuality and attractiveness-- not by means of dress or even speech, necessarily, but by putting up a wall/withdrawing her personal sensuality to the far recesses of her being. I know she does it to minimize random approaches and confessions of love and lust from men in whom she's not interested; however, I'm sure it's difficult for her to loosen up when a man she is attracted to comes on the scene-- a sure-fire recipe for being an old maid if she isn't careful. I notice these things in her because I do them also. We discussed the matter and acknowledged it mutually, which will hopefully be the first step to overcoming the problem.

Truly, this joint effort to stop projecting unconscious frigidity is a matter of the blind leading the blind, but hopefully we're being led in the right direction. We're ignorant in some respects, having chosen (as yet) to not fully indulge ourselves sexually, but I believe we really can open ourselves fearlessly to a less guarded outlook and mode of behavior if we try.

I think our quiet moments together are going to bear immense fruit. We are two very similar souls lucky to have found one another.

Not that I believe in luck.

PS I've been wearing this robe my best friend in Chicago gave me. It cheers me up when I'm struggling with my sleep disorder.



PS I really like Mormons. Especially the young blonde missionary boys.

PS She doesn't have anything negative to say about my sex industry escapades, so I don't have to hide my true self from her.