He’s A Devil in Disguise …

My dad made it back from Afghanistan safely, and I drove down to spend the holidays with him and the rest of the family. While walking through the mall yesterday, I updated him on the going-ons of this past semester. You would think we would have done this by phone, but for the life of me I hate figuring out the windows of opportunity time tables necessary for contacting him, so I usually end up missing a lot of his calls. That and the ringer for my phone is usually off or set to vibrate. We were walking through the mall, and he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Just as he asked me this, we pass a shoe store, and in the window are some snake skin stiletto boots. A smile spread across my face as I contemplated blurting out “Christian Louboutin Snake skin Boots.” Instead I said a camcorder or the first segment for some acting classes. Yet, ever since passing those shoes in the mall, I haven’t been able to get them out of my mind. I even dreamt about them last night. This is one of the main reasons I do not allow myself to go near malls. As a self-professed consumer whore, I’d be like a junkie in a crack shop offering holiday discounts.

Quitting smoking hasn’t helped either, because immediately after the desire to run through the mall, grab everything in sight and charge it on an imaginary limitless credit card I was hit ith the most intense desire for a cigarette. For the past two weeks I’ve been making fun of dear every time he’s been hit by an intense craving (usually after he comes back from Church). Then he calls me mean and says,”M’onique said that a skinny bitch is an evil bitch” while I laugh devilishly and don’t deny his claim. My rationale is that he’s not the only one going through withdrawals. It also doesn’t help him that he’s using Wellbutrin to quit, but switched from 2 pills a day to one. I told him I’d been through SSRI withdrawals before and they are an evil, evil bitch. Like being tied to an electric wire that occasionally sends jolts to the brain. I still have flashbacks about my withdrawals.

At any rate, I had the most intense desire for a cigarette and was popping Orbit gum like a madman. I then felt a slight twang of guilt for poking fun at Dear while he suffered through his cravings. He likened his moments of cravings akin to almost having a panic attack. Whenever he paints that picture for me, I just imagine Jesse the Donkey Great Dane going through one of his biting fits. When Jesse’s struck by these fits, it’s almost like a little kid who is tired but doesn’t want to go to sleep and is just looking for something to help keep him awake. I felt like Dear, Jesse and a little kid all rolled into one. Finally, I settled on a large cup of coffee. And managed to push those boots out of my mind. At least, until I fell asleep. And then I woke up with Carrie Underwood’s “Cowboy Casanova“  on repeat inside my head after dreaming myself playing the role of Lucifer in Arthur Miller’s Creation of the World and Other Business. Wearing those snake skin boots.

If any theatre’s open to staging a production of Arthur Miller’s Creation of the World and Other Business with the role of Lucifer as an androgynous, prancing, heel-wearing fallen angel, let’s talk.

Cigarettes or Food?

I’m debating between a pack of Marlboro lights or a trip to Moe’s for some nachos. You would think that food wins out, but spending some time in France with very little cash (i.e. kept losing my wallet and credit cards getting canceled) I learned that cigarettes will take you much farther than a plate of food. One meal and your done, but you can stretch out a pack of smokes to last two days.

Of course, at some point in all of this there has to be food I guess. I mean, I had a bagel. Don’t I deserve my pack of Marlboro Lights?

In my defense, a lot of this is fueled by seeing Sarah Jessica Parker light up while watching Smart People last night. And any time I see her in Sex and the City. I guess smoking in movies is bad! Eh, fuck it. We’ll see how long this latest bout of quitting goes.

That’s Not The Way I Want My Story to End…

Dear Harmonia and Discordia,

I have this terrible tendency to withdraw whenever I’m faced with incredible stress. It’s a really nasty habit; almost as nasty as my smoking habit. While avoidance is a great temporary solution, it is not a permanent solution to my problems. The only way to permanently deal with my problems is to actually address the things that are causing me stress, and figure out resolution to those problems.

Conflict avoidance can be used as a temporary measure to buy time or as permanent means of disposing of a matter. The latter may be indistinguishable from simple acquiescence to the other party, to the extent that the person avoiding the conflict subordinates their own wishes to the party with whom they have the conflict. However, conflict avoidance can also take the form of withdrawing from the relationship. Thus, avoidance scenarios can be either win-lose, lose-lose or possibly even win-win, if terminating the relationship is the best method of solving the problem.

See? Only a temporary solution. Plus, avoidance behavior has gotten me into much trouble in the past, and this year is all about change; confronting ways I handled stress in the past and finding new solutions to dealing with that stress.

Of Diving in too deep and possibly the complications…

The love that he bore him—for it was really love—had something noble and intellectual in it. It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born of the senses, and that dies when the senses tire. It was such love as Michael Angelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself.

-Oscar Wilde “Picture of Dorian Grey”

Dear Tolstoy,

I’m out of cigarettes, and haven’t had one since Friday evening. That will all be remedied in the morning, but there’s no way of convincing my mind otherwise. I don’t crave the staining of my clothes with their scent, so much as I miss the drive they give me to accomplish daily tasks, much like the carrot placed in front of a horse. If I do this task, then I can reward myself with a cigarette, which will produce a temporary rush and allow me to collect my thoughts, but more importantly provide me with the impetus to go outside. My life’s all about tricking the subconscious. A dirty battle indeed.

So, admittedly I’ve been absent for, let’s say two or so months. One would think that at this point in my life, after the past two years I shouldn’t be amazed as to what can pass in the short amount of two months. Estrangement with Mother. Took a walk on the dark side of passions and greed. Fell for a strapping soldier in Decatur, literally mere minute after writing about how I wouldn’t go jumping off cliffs anymore. Continued wake of emotional destruction on others, doing only what a coquette does best. Boredom with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Back into therapy. Continued estrangement from Mother. Father comes home! Start to slowly turn life around as though Odysseus has returned from his decade long journey and is now cleaning house. There’s an awful lot left out, and an awful amount to expound upon.

Noblesse Oblige: The Essence of Being Gay Pt. V

Tina and Blow

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)

 

Dear St. Sebatian and Ganymede,

I’ve no problems with drugs, really. At least responsible drug use. I personally prefer psychedelics. Some prefer stimulants. It’s not the drug use I have a problem with; instead rather the addictions. Or what the addictions seem to imply. I like to think drugs should only enhance, not replace. And shouldn’t be a reason to excuse but understand personal behavior.

No, what scares me is the escapism. We all escape with various addictions, whether sex, drugs, or rock and roll. But, the scary thing about escapism through drugs is that it prevents one from seeing exactly what one is escaping. An attempt to get outside of oneself, or to not feel, or to feel more. Whatever the reasons, seeking it only because it provides temporary pleasure only makes it harder to deal with the underlying problem. And, just like psychedelics, if you’re having a bad trip in life, you’re probably going to have a bad trip on whatever you’re taking. Maybe not initially, but as your body can tolerate the drug more and more, one eventually reach a point where running is no longer an option and you have to face reality.