May 7, 2002
Reruns
What does watching ten episodes in a row of Sex and the City get you? Dreams about Sex and the City. That'll teach me.
So then, when I woke up, I had Stevie Nicks and Kylie Minogue alternating their songs in my head, like they were dueling for dominance. "You can consume all the beauty in the room, baby / I know you can, I've seen you do it" and then "Fever sure has got me good / What you do when fever takes hold / I can't help but need this drug / Don't you feel the fever like I do / Feel the fever." And lather, rinse, repeat as needed. This happens to me all the time. I always have songs popping in and out of my head. All I need to hear is a certain syncopation on the computer keyboard, a car's horn, a breaking glass even, and I get a song with a similar rhythm stuck in my head for hours or until I hear it in its entirety again. How bizarre. But at times it's comforting because it keeps my mind occupied in case I can't otherwise occupy it.
For some reason, this morning while I was showering, I was captivated by my body. While it's nothing spectacular anymore, I never pay attention to all that it does for me. I saw my feet supporting my frame and all of its baggage. I watched as my hands moved and my toes wriggled around in the water. I noted that all of the actions that I take for granted are performed by some sort of brain function that I will never understand. I don't consciously tell my mouth to open when I'm about to brush my teeth; it just seems to do so automatically. I feel almost like a computer that has been programmed to perform certain functions repeatedly, every day, night, or whenever. Of course, I could go on to be existential about it all, but that would be too cheesy, and we wouldn't want that. So, rather than letting my fingers type while I'm composing the words in my head, I try to make my fingers move to the keys on the keyboard, and I realize that I can't, or at least, I don't know how to tell them to move. Isn't that odd? What command in my head tells my index finger to hit the "t" key? I'm sure it's easily explainable, but I'll just write it off as one of those strange unknowns of the human body.
I spent the weekend driving around, causing trouble, and leaving messes in my wake. I had the sense to bring along my hand-held tape recorder like I used to in the past, to record my thoughts and experiences. Listening to the tape now, I realize how raw human experience and emotion can be. I had the recorder by my side throughout the weekend, and I picked it up anytime I had an urgent thought to capture. I was debating whether I should transcribe that tape here, but then I thought better of it. It really was so raw that, even on the internet with nothing but strangers' eyes reading this material, I would feel embarrassed. Perhaps some day.
I like recording my thoughts, though. I took a road trip to Iowa about seven years ago, right after I bought my Golf and recorded the six-day round-trip journey, including a few days while I was staying at my mom's house. I have never erased that tape, and I hope to actually digitize it some day. I laugh my ass off listening to the sleep-deprived comments that popped into my head and the uncensored banter I would have with myself. Strange, I know, but it's kind of fun. And it's the kind of fun that only I could find amusing because it's all a bunch of inside jokes that I have with myself. Oh, come on, that's not so strange. I know we all have our own inside jokes, and I feel sorry for those who don't. It's all about laughter and love, people.
That's all.
