When we went out to Juan's last night, Ken told me that I take a lot of pride in "getting shit done on the weekends." And I guess I do. There's always something I've put off for weeks, like doing laundry or
washing my car, that I save for the weekends when I don't (yet) have anything better to occupy my time.
It's amazing to me the unifying conditions it seems humans have with regard to memory and time. Time goes by so fast and so unnoticed until we're given time to breathe and look back. We calibrate so much with time. I thought about it during my errands yesterday that I know a lot of people who do not seem, outwardly, to have many goals they are able/willing to nail down, including myself. There's that dialogue from The Matrix:
Morpheus: Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my own life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean.
Ok, so if we believe that we are in charge of our own lives, how come so many of us can waste expansive amount of time before we acknowledge our own dreams? We can say that we are pitted against the circumstances of not having control over the rest of the world. Maybe the fact that while many of us have dreams or aspirations, the world provides paths of lesser resistance. Your survival instincts may not allow for your personal joy. These are some of the things I am discovering about myself.
I tried to stay away from the apartment for as long as possible, so after dinner last night, I called over to Suzy and Bryan's and we went down to Monahan's. They both work at the 735 Club on Bourbon and we went over there for a while. The doorman looked familiar to me. He had a shaved head, goatie, piercings in lobes, nose bridge, septum, three is his lower lip and several in his eyebrows, which were shaved and tattooed. I asked him how long he'd lived here and if he ever worked at Bongo, a clothing store on Decatur that closed down years ago. He said he managed there for 5 years. He didn't have quite as many piercings then as he does now, but I knew he looked familiar. I remember having a small crush on him when I when into Bongo to look at shoes more than 4 years ago. I have a weirdly specific memory for random occurances.
After I got back from the Quarter last night, I laid in bed and tried desparately to clear my mind. I have all these thoughts, things I want to do or see myself doing: attending that gym, attending classes for teacher certification. I thought over doing the classes in Mississippi instead of Louisiana, because if I moved to Mississippi around the time Carson does, it won't really help that I have certification in LA, as I will need to be certified in that state. I could save money that way now for the potential move, but the move gets me nervous too, as it would be a big deal for me, a leap into the unknown. I tried to clear my mind again. You never realize how hard this is to do until you try it, until you want a clear mind. I am embarrassed to say that different scenes in movies kept popping in. The scene in My Girl where she reads a poem aloud for her now dead friend, who died from an allergic reaction to bee stings he got while out looking for her lost mood ring. Then the scene in Nightmare on Elm Street where Nancy confronts her mother about how Fred Krueger's hat mysteriously appears in a dream clinic.
I ran my hand over the place where my head would usually be, since I am now sleeping on Carson's side of the bed. I have not yet figured out the little gas heater in his place and the room is cold except for the place where I have warmed myself.