swing

ice ice ice ice all i do is chew on ice and send out bad vibes to strangers who drive diesel trucks and honk at me and breathe with their mouth open and think nothing because thoughts are for losers and hey what's that a deer let's shoot it.

What an odd way to begin a blog post. But then again, what do you expect from me? You expect this. You expect the frantic, run-on sentences. You expect the sudden, rough transitions. You expect to be worried for my sanity by the end of the first paragraph. But then sometimes I write some fairly decent, polished things. Things? Go grab me a dictionary. Or a thesaurus or a vocabulary builder book or whatever. And while you are doing that, would you mind refilling my cup with ice? Thank you! I owe you!

And here is a transition: I feel as though I owe so many people so many things for no definite reason. Have I been this way my entire life? It sure seems like it. Looking through this thesaurus you so kindly handed to me, the feeling of constantly being in the debt of others is also known as "people pleasing syndrome" and "perfectionism" and "chronically coming up short you dumb idiot baby why can't you do anything right everyone is better than you come on just try a little harder." Man. How exhausting. Time to start living the antonyms, amirite?

After the above paragraph, I took a break. I went on a walk and read my book while I walked like a crazy person. A crazy, literary person. A crazy, literary person who just so happens to not be quite as crazy when she is outside. Outside anywhere. Even if it's on a metal picnic table with ketchup stains outside of a Wienerschnitzel off of State Street in Family City, USA. Even if it's there. Point is, I can't have walls and a roof. I mean, obviously I can. In fact, I kind of need some literal walls and an actual roof. Not emotional walls, I guess. That's what people say -- Don't have emotional walls! (Do people say this? Often?) But don't emotional walls protect us from invading armies? Anyway, I'm no military expert. Armies shmarmies. Walls smalls. Biggie Smalls. Small Wonder. It's no wonder I stay up until 3am -- my mind won't stop running away from me, up into the trees, swinging from branch to branch in search of a bunch of bananas or at least a burrito. My body waits patiently on the sidelines for the monkey mind to wipe itself out so it can finally fall into an interrupted sleep for the remaining hours of the night. I dream of carnivals. Have I mentioned this before? Well, I do. And they are always abandoned.

My walk helped. Immensely. Sitting in the sun on the deck also helped. I tried to write by hand, but the pen felt too slow for the monkey. I went to the store and cured my depression by purchasing wasabi and ginger hummus. It's a thing. And it's a holy thing. Then I dressed up like a 12-year-old boy who loves hip hop and went on a short, brisk walk around the block. (Around the 'hood!) I couldn't stop staring at what I like to call "Jesus Clouds." (Jesus, clouds!) They were magnificent and glorious and almost as holy as the wasabi and ginger hummus. I am back now, inside, cold. As much as I desire the act of chewing on pebble ice, I will put that craving out of my mind and dive into a cup of fennel tea instead. (The sentence you just read might have been the most exciting sentence ever constructed in the English language.) I am tired and my left hand is numb. I don't want to think about why it is suddenly numb. I would rather read ghost stories and let the fennel do whatever it does.

And now I wait. I wait while the monkey begins to swing and I think about trying to bribe it with some Sleepytime tea. But monkeys don't want tea. Monkeys only want me to let them have complete control over the keyboard. Type away, monkey mind. The world is your banana.