Forsooth, I See a Tiger and Lo, It is Laughing

Remember those perfume commercials from years ago when women walked through smoky European streets after using some kind of product made by a Frenchman who likes to talk about "notes" and presumably drives a really nice car? Invariably there would be some black jaguar or spotted cheetah or SOME kind of wild cat lurking in the midst, presumably because if you use really expensive perfume it turns you into a wild, sexual creature as implied by the presence of the wild cat. I think this came to me, as all things inevitably must, as I lay on my bed clutching my teddy bear and staring at the sad remnants of my remaining Chanel No. 5 - ah, Chanel, we hardly knew ye! This perfume is really truly my favorite - and I haved loved perfume ever since my grandmother first taught me how to dab it on my wrists, one of many priceless gifts a grandmother might impart. It's a love affair that started young. The other gifts she imparted were her abhorrence of Vanna White and her love of classy TV dinners - once, in an attempt to buy something cheap, I was assaulted by my grandmother's caustic tongue. I, of course, thought that I was doing her and her limited income a favor, but my grandmother was not shy about drubbing any and all humans in her midst with her various opinions. My father, who was abused by this wonderful misguided woman, would later turn his wrath on me, and hence my many years spent rearranging knicknacks on therapist's couches mentally as they attempted (yet, not very hard, she thinks) to determine what makes me tick. I find therapy useless and the world frightening, particularly in the relentless gentrification slowly bleeding through the land. But what, you ask, in a confused and righteous tone of voice, does this have to do with perfume?
Well, now that I'm poor, I long for nice things, and this bottle is a very nice thing indeed. And I think a lot lately about things like status and power and money and racism and oppression and how it seems to me we are creating a world in which the rich will one day literally walk over the backs of the poor. In fact, it calls to mind something I saw on my telly - a picture of a naked woman covered with fruit at a party for a very wealthy celebrity. The fruit was being eaten by various guests as she lay there, supine, presumably being paid well for her time and trouble but what, I ask you, is the point of this? Other than to show off how rich the owner is and what he might do in the way of humiliating people in this manner? Truly sad, sick, and bizarre, my friends, but the world has come to this, I think, and it will only get worse. Much, much worse.
And yet I still like things - my perfume - and wild cats. And I even loved my grandmother, horrible and kind though she was, all at once (although not horrible to me - but certainly she was to my father, and so the sad cycle of abuse began). I wish for nice things. I wish for a world that is a level playing field all might enjoy nice things in - starting with a liveable wage for all. No racism, no oppression, no have and have nots, no inequality, but a place of opportunity, the place our Founding Fathers, subjugated though they were to the mores of their day, did wish to see flourish.
It's a little bit of contemplation, I guess, to garner from a bottle of perfume. But for some reason it did call to mind this last thought: how can the rich possibly enjoy their luxury unless all can enjoy it with them?
Wild cats in the jungle, roaring, demanding to be heard.
May we all be heard in this world, my friends.

You Thought I Ran Away But I Was Hiding

Ah, to be or not to be, that is the question teeming inside my subconscious mind...or is it unconscious? Evidently and apparently there is some kind of war between these two words! At least, so I read on that oh so helpful website, wikipedia. Wikipedia, coming soon to an Internet near you! I think that wikipedia has written many a shyly sly high school freshman's first term paper, but I could be overreaching with this kind of speculation. At any rate, evidently the weird subconscious is really not a very academic word at all and the word "unconscious" is the preferred word because it has a specific Freudian interpretation. Should be, 'cause that coke-snorting fiend invented it! Ah, me and Sigmund, Daddy issues galore. Perhaps it could have been a match made in heaven, or at least one stretched out on his couch while he took notes and I free-associated while he interrupted me periodically to snort lines off a cracked mirror. Oh, is that your fantasy, too?
Anywho, once I was young, now I am not, and the old mind well, it is still depressed. I have been living (and you thought that this particular blog came streaking in from that fabled afterlife! Admit it, you thought I've been hanging out with that John Edwards guy!) in a house run by a very strange woman whose life is as chaotic as Imelda Marcos' former sock drawer. Admit it, Imelda, you had the shoe thing down, but dropped the ball on the socks!
Anywho, I like living here in the way that some people enjoy root canals or Tom Cruise enjoys being alone. You get my meaning, folks. For awhile renting a room in a complete stranger's house seemed a fun time, but gradually the eerie facade she wore dropped away and I was left with the hallmark of the twenty-first century. e.g., dsyfunction! Lots and lots of it, plus sinks that don't drain, leaking pipes that never get fixed, suicidal boyfriends, snotty sons who never speak to me, dogs that barked so much I finally blew up at her, and of course the little niggling, nasty feeling that I was only loved for my money. Sacrebleu! Could it be? And here I thought, like Kermit the Frog, they loved me just for me. Sigh.
To make a long story short, in this hell state the theme of my life has been this: no fucking housing. The other theme: lots of fucking depression. The third theme: what in hell am I doing with my life? There are little sub themes, themes that only spend the night, and occasionally themes that wake me up early demanding to be exorcised only no exorcist ever seems available, alas and alack! Alack is prettier than alas, but alas is so much more demanding!
So there you have it. I'm really a nut, but in a nice way, the way that a man can't keep his hand out of that little jar of salted peanuts at a bar...what do I mean, exactly? Well, does everything need an explanation, do our rational western minds need to be curried to and fawned over incessantly, people? I thought not! Ah, God bless you.
So, my life's been ticking along. I have no car so walk frequently, and attend an Episcopal church overrun by a lot of elitist types who like to exercise their need for friendly condescension. It's mildly irritating, but human hemmrhoids do exist, folks! Alas and alack (alack, stop scratching that! we'll be there soon!). Just going on with the hemmrhoid theme, really! I write a lot, never date, have a few friends, and continue to struggle with MDD, PTSD, and that one lone space alien who just won't leave me alone. Sigh. It's so hard people, really! Tired of being superwoman. Tired of being a woman. Tired.
That's my story and yes, I am sticking to it! Later, gators.