Trash, for later inspection.

Among the littered floors of break-ups and job-quitting, and the baseboard-cleaning of exterminations, I found all this...stuff. Pictures, flyers, drunken ramblings, textbooks, those little pamphlets the hare krishnas give out in free speech alley. Bar napkins with awful poetry written on them, fiction critiques from classmates I've long forgotten, doodles in the margins of classes I later failed.

Part of me wants to stuff all of it in a bag and chunk it, like I've been doing with everything else. Really, no matter how much I love throwing stuff away, I'm absurdly sentimental... and I went full-blown grandma on the things I found today. There was something very... important, and subtle about everything, because most of it I never intended to keep. It's the residue of my life for the past four years.

Important, because these are the things my brain has used to file away memories. These are the things my college experience memory is based on. And I know it's silly, but I feel like if I sweep them all away or scrub them out of existence, I'm also doing that to the six years I spent at LSU. I know I'll never forget them, but I will forget the little things--the bar napkins and dusty pieces of mirrors, ha--because finding them today, I hadn't thought of their stories in years.

And god damnit, the little things are what I consider to be the blood of experience. They're the things I write about--they center my stories, and they are my literary devices. Little pieces of stuff, trash, that I can pile together to paint not just a story, but a scene--complete with smell, touch, electricity. Life. A force that has power to move others.

I have these boxes in my closet. I haven't gone through them in years, but I think I'll put all those important pieces of trash in there. When I leave here, I'll secretly put them in my parents' attic, where they'll be safe. If I take them with me, they're likely to be destroyed, and I kind of think of them like my crow, or Samson's hair. The source of my power, whatever my power is. I'm not sure I know what my superpower is yet, but I know the potential for it is in those boxes.

Along with everyone I've ever gone on a date with, or destroyed, or anyone who's broken me down to pieces--how it happened is in the closet. All my love stories, all the residue from my drug experiments, all the pictures at the watering holes where everything went down. Bits of string I played with at the park and names of bartenders I loved and customers I loved even more. Besides holding the secret to my superpower, I think I keep all this stuff so that, maybe later in my old age and infinite wisdom, I can open the boxes and put together some document that makes sense out of the things I've done. Because man, it's rare when anything I do makes sense while I'm doing it.

People say hindsight is a bitch. I think hindsight contains the meaning of life. And you know, even if it is a bitch, it always makes sense. Maybe people who think it's a bitch don't want it to make sense, because they wish they'd done it better, or smoother, or otherwise different. I've had my own instances of that--where you're angry because you see exactly why you made a wrong decision, but you still can't go back and correct it.

A life that makes sense in hindsight is the most any of us can ask for. We just want more, more perfection, so we can have the right to go out and tell others how to live. No one has that right. It's hard to blame people for seeking priests and spiritual advisors, or for keeping boxes of trash in their closets for later inspection. We all just really, really want there to be an answer. I don't think there is one, aside from what we each experience, because that's the only thing that will ever make sense to anyone.

daisuki

I haven't spent a dime in days. I've even offered money to people who didn't take it. The universe seems to want me to pay my bills by myself. I've been offered money to buy me out of my life of student loan debt. I've been taken care of many times over this week--my wisdom teeth are gone and I feel I've grown closer to my family by letting them take care of me (also the painkillers helped me be very, very chatty). For the first time in a very long time, I'm not wishing for anything or envious of another's life, or thinking that I should be doing something else with mine. For once, I'm pretty damn sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. In the prophetic words of my magic 8 ball: All signs point to yes.

Tommy and I split up in the best way it could have happened. I hope everything he wants comes to him, but before that, I hope his wants mature a little. He had a lot of them, I could never keep up.

All the bullshit in my life is evaporating at an explosive rate, like none of it was ever real in the first place. It's finally my turn.

This has happened before

I abruptly jerked from my sleep and instantly remembered being there before, when I never have been. I looked around, and the resemblance faded into a gradient, starting at the banisters and ending in the corners of the room, as if the recollection were right there, sneaking around in the shadows, just out of my reach.

The distinct impressions that future memories leave--in the form of smells, flashes, and lighting; the colors of the paint and the creaks of the stairs--are the residuals of dreams.

I had been there before, in a dream. I remembered being there before I ever was.

The fifth dimension is tricky, and it's all the more because we're only 3-D creatures, incapable of anything but small flashes of clarity at random, meaningless intervals. Most of the time, they come and go, and they end up being nothing but a good dream, something that couldn't or wouldn't ever happen, and you file it away with all the other good, improbable dreams.

But maybe it will happen. Or if it doesn't, then it did on some plane of time, when you chose another path. Maybe what you're dreaming is glimpses of a future--not the future--that exists somewhere. Maybe they're gifts from the past versions of yourself, put there to guide you along to what you're supposed to do with this one.

Normal deja vu at places I've been to before happens frequently. But this--this is rare for me. All these things are happening in a positive feedback loop that I no longer have the power to stop. I suppose if this were the wrong way to go, it'd be too late now to change it. And that's something that I'm going to go ahead and thank God for, because if I had to think about it and make every step meticulously, then none of it would have ever happened.

It looks like I might be lighting that fire under my ass way quicker than I originally anticipated. Every few minutes, I feel a door opening somewhere that, only 48 hours ago, was locked with fear and doubt. I've none of that any longer. Everything will happen, and is happening, quicker than I have time to think about. I think I trust it.

The Land of the Dead Bugs

I need a decompression. The last few days have been excruciating, but oddly invigorating.

I discovered bedbugs in my box spring about four days ago. I won't go into the nightmare that ensued, because I've been complaining about it for days. And in all actuality, the baseboard-cleaning and furniture dissection and disposal of beds has turned into something... uh, somewhat therapeutic.

Throwing away things has always been kind of cathartic to me. It's really hard for me to do, but when things happen that necessitate the mass removal of crap that I don't actually need, I jump at the opportunity and never look back. My bed had a pull-out drawer where I just piled up old school stuff, like returned papers and homework and things. I thought I'd want to keep it for one day when I forget everything I learned from LSU. But instead of picking through it and wasting hours of precious bug-ridding time, I just got a garbage bag and shoved everything in it. I can't explain how good this made me feel.

It's like a chance to start over.

I lit a fire under my ass after that. I've had a degree for over a year now, and decided that along with my less-cluttered life, I'd quit my job too. So I put in a month's notice on Thursday. I've already got some leads on jobs, and have for awhile now--just haven't had the courage to follow through on anything. For the longest time, I said it had nothing to do with courage, and it was everything to do with practicality and finances. But what I was really saying, was that I didn't have the drive it took to make things work. I make more than enough money to pay my bills every month--I just don't exactly live frugally. I guess by comparison, I'm in the most frugal category, but I'm not comparing anymore. I'm just looking at the numbers, and how I could better spend my money while possibly taking a pay cut. I'm not concerned with the way others spend their money.

Courage has everything to do with it. I've been living without it for years now, and it is destroying everything I love about myself. So I'm done with that--I'm tossing it in the garbage bag without picking through every little detail and wasting more time. The illusion that I have to be absolutely secure every hour of my life has prevented me from taking any sort of step forward. I'm done being scared; and I truly do not know what's going to happen after this, but I don't give a shit anymore.

Hello, life! Opportunities! Changes! Low budgets! Absolute uncertainty and leaps of faith on par with Kierkegaard! See, I do remember things I learned at LSU without keeping all that crap. And I even failed Existentialism. Like, really failed, with a giant red F.

In other news, I've written and published my first few articles for the Tiger Weekly. They're free and around Baton Rouge. My first lead story goes to press for Wednesday of this week--check it out, it took a lot more work than it looks like. And I'm getting paid for it, although minimally, it's still a payoff.

A Moppy Sunday

I keep having these dreams that my teeth are falling out, or I'm mopping the floor. Sometimes my teeth are falling out while I'm mopping the floor. Or that I'm so busy mopping the floor that I don't realize my teeth are falling out. Very unsettling.

In the dream dictionary, tooth loss symbolizes powerlessness, working with the teeth as a symbol of power. Your teeth are what people see when you let your guard down and smile. They are a symbol of power, but only when you combine confidence and self-image.

Well, maybe the confidence thing is right on the money. I'm not very gung-ho about myself lately. I feel like a knick-knack. You know those antique, nicotine-stained old things your grandmother's grandmother had when she was a little girl? Some of them had actual uses that mattered in their hayday, like a washboard or a burner cover. Now that they've been rendered obsolete by the washing machine and electric stoves, there will come a day, probably soon, where no one is left who remembers their purpose. I feel kind of like that.

My confidence and self-image are falling out, I suppose. I'm sure you can't trust those books anyway. Maybe all it means is a glimpse into eternity; this is my lot, this is what I deserve. Sentenced to forever remember what I gave up for mediocrity's sake; for the ability to mop the floor until my teeth fall out.

Hey, Mushrooms Have to Grow Too.

On a bored day, I tend to rearrange things obsessively. I really enjoy getting the most out of this small space I have, and trying to make it feel cozy rather than tiny is part of that. I've come to love my dilapidated "garage apartment" (as the landlady calls it), and all its quirks. Signing the lease was agreeing to fix problems as they arise, and I understood even though it remained unsaid as I left her house.

Not big problems, like the time a tree fell on my bathroom during hurricane Gustave. Little things, like the giant crack in the tank of the toilet. The lack of a P-trap entirely on the bathroom sink. The window unit pissing water all over the hard-wood floor. Truly, this place has forced me to become acquainted with the use of power tools and caulk, hammer and nails, and weather stripping. I'm almost happy about that; it's gotten me out of the habit of letting problems get infinitely worse before I get off my ass to fix them. The difference? It's my home, and I've never thought of it as "just an apartment".

Here's a secret that could have been the worst thing I've ever done: I didn't even look inside this place before I signed the lease. At $375 a month, located in a nice Mid-City neighborhood where most people have families and pay more than $800 for one bedroom, I really should have looked at the place. But I didn't.

And when I got the key, I came here immediately, no power or water or heat. I put votives on the windowsills and set up camp in my future bedroom, and slept on the freezing wood floor. The only thought in my head was that I'd never, ever had this much space to call my own, and I thought it was fake. I thought it would be taken away from me because it was too good to be true, so I wanted to get as much time in it as I possibly could. It felt like a vacation.

Growing up, if I wanted alone time, I had to go to the bathroom or wait until everyone was asleep to take over the living room. I'm not sure if it's because I've always had to share a room, but I now require periods of time behind a closed door to retain sanity. It has to be that way, and I don't often come across people who understand that. Sure, everyone feels anti-social every once in awhile, but I want to kill people if I don't have a night to myself once a week. I'm a textbook introvert.

("But wait, doesn't she wait tables?"

Yes, and I had to force myself to do so. It was a conscious effort to be more outgoing. It didn't work.)

But even when the bills rolled in and didn't stop and got bigger, it still felt like a vacation. And on nights like these, when Tommy's at work and no one is bombarding me with stimuli or beer, that I remember what release I felt years ago upon walking through the door. I realize how vastly I have changed as a person within these walls, and how much of it is due to these walls.

I've become more assertive and insistent; decisive, both confident and stubborn. I've coached myself through issues and conflicts, and learned to compromise when my selfishness wants everything my way. I have become more myself than I ever have been, no matter how many times I've thought I was losing it because my sisters weren't around. I've fallen on my face a lot in the 3 years I've lived here (literally and figuratively), but if someone is always there to pick you up, you continue to get too drunk. Growth can be painful, but it's necessary. Also necessary: a few walls to keep your emotional insides contained while it happens; a place where you can let them splatter all over the floor if you need to, and the ability to say, "fuck it, I'll clean it up later." They might need the air anyway.

And aside from the occasional mushroom growing in the bathroom, no quirk has been too much. At least my apartment has less quirks and more structural integrity than I do.

The mushroom was close, though.

Tired

I've been running so hard this week that I have blood blisters on my feet. Just about burned my fingerprints off yesterday holding a plate for a jackass who wouldn't get his damn hand off the table so I could put it down. I've never consciously swallowed pain before--I just took a big gulp and hid the searing in my throat until I had a chance to run cold water over it.

When that shift finally ended (still can't believe it did, actually), my friends were drunk and wanted to get drunker. Tommy had to meet someone at a bar, and wanted me to come. I wanted A Beer, as in one, because I knew I had to get up at 9 to endure more abuse all over again.

We ended up at a different bar, having shots forced upon us from a drunk ex co-worker. He just kept buying them, and they were awful. Things like "espresso tequila" and Jager. So all in all, I had 1.5 pints of beer, 2 gin and tonics, a shot of Jager and that fucking espresso tequila...in that order. It wasn't like your standard "aww I can't take shots.... well, OKAY." It was more like "I can't do that shit tonight dude. No, really, I have to fucking get up in the morning and I'm already way drunker than I wanted to be" and he just stared at me like I'd offended him. Tommy was of no help. I've never been more pissed off about having to take a shot, and NO ONE else at the bar wanted it.

So, I had to stay up and chug water until 4am, sleep until 9, wake up with the worst goddamn hangover I've had since freshman year of college, and sling meatloaf and lasagna in hellfire-temperature skillets for 4 hours.

Bad days.