"Please don't wake me, no don't shake me...

...Leave me where I am
I'm only sleeping

Everybody seems to think I'm lazy

I don't mind, I think they're crazy

Running everywhere at such a speed

Till they find, there's no need

Please don't spoil my day

I'm miles away

And after all

I'm only sleeping"

-
The Beatles, I´m only sleeping lyrics.

When you are unemployed and kidless, sleeping in is not a luxury. There is something discomforting about waking up late and being starkly aware that you are not expected. Anywhere. By anyone. Nobody needs you to make them breakfast. Nobody needs you to pack their lunches. No reports need to be on anyone's desk by any time.

"Enjoy it while it lasts", a platitude spilling forth like vomit out of the mouth of every single person I've shared any conversation with in the past three months, and in the most bantering tone. "Yeah, I know". Thanks for the advice, oh brilliant one, endowed with the knowledge of obscure things. I would have never thought of that one.

Something is pressing in on your skull. It's the feeling of too much rest melded with perpetual boredom and guilt. You know if you lay your head back down you could easily sleep two more hours, despite already having slept ten. This isn't silky, princely rest. It is rest with resignation, surrender, defeatism, because there's nothing else to do but rest. You know that you'll feel better if you only get up and do something, tire yourself out a bit and actually earn those z's again. But it doesn't matter one way or the other if you actually do, to anyone.

Suddenly that all changes.

"You're hired."

On Monday I will have to be somewhere. Someone will be expecting me, like, really fucking early in the morning. If I don't show up things will be bad. People will be angry. Important shit won't get done, I guess. Cogs and sprockets will cease to link up, wheels won't go round, and the whole machine will malfunction. My presence will be required.

Nothing has really changed yet. I haven't started working. I don't deserve my double digit hours of sleep. Not yet. But now they feel like hard-earned vacation sleep. When I start to stir I grasp at the dreams so they won't leave me yet and let me hang out there for just a little while longer in sweet luxury.

I wish I had a couple of weeks to get used to the idea of employment again, to sleep in and enjoy it and pay credence to the million and one trite comments people have made about taking advantage of it, instead of sleep having felt like this for two months.

Oh, if I had only known that my presence would be required, mandatory again so soon. Ain´t life just like that?

-Blues

Anyone have a light socket I can plug my existence into?

I haven't looked for a job in almost ten years. They seem to creep up on me before I even want them for some reason. Maybe this is where I have failed, by never pursuing anything, just taking whatever shit pile falls from the sky and smacks me down. But I hate looking for a job. I hate it more than working at a mind-numbing-fuck-my-cerebral-cortex job.

See, I have an "enchufe", literally a socket, like a light socket. Everyone knows that you need a socket if you want to connect a plug, you can't just plug something directly into the wall. Looking for job in Spain with no enchufe is akin to trying to plug in a lamp directly into the wall with no outlet, making a bunch of fucking holes in your freshly painted living room wall, never even getting close to the electricity wiring or actually jamming it into wires and getting electrocuted and then getting repeatedly frustrated because you're sitting in the dark, in a room full of holes with your hair on fire. No outlet, no light. No enchufe, no jobbie-job. Thems the rules around this place.

Despite hating this concept and disagreeing with it on every ethical level, I find myself relying on enchufes and also being them. This whole country is a mess because of enchufes. You go to the bank to open up an account and the person that opens accounts doesn´t even know how to type so you wait all morning while he pecks away at his computer, essaying it forever to find the "F" as in "fuck me" key, taking a coffee break mid-way through. The extent of his applicable experience consists of being someone´s brother-in-law.

My enchufe apparently wants me to have a job more than I myself even want one and has pestered me since before I left my other job for me to let him help me. Initially he offered me a job in his company, which didn't materialize into much. I woudn´t have made a good fit anyway there, but he worked his magic elsewhere, through his wife's company, and when that failed, his wife's former employer. And the enchufe gets gradually weaker, but you can still get a little flicker of light from it. Please stay lit, motherfucker!

Today was my second interview.

As far as interviews go, I know all the rules. I myself have spent the last three years interviewing people for positions. I paid close attention to what candidates considered appropriate interview attire (their instincts were almost always wrong).

I paid attention to see if there was any shit under their fingernails (you'd be surprised), how punctual they were (Don´t you dare show up late without calling, you idiot, and don´t show up thirty minutes early and stare me down until I interview you ahead of schedule), if they made eye contact (not avoiding my gaze but not creeping me out either), their handshake (not too firm, not a dead fish. Confidence, but not aggressive confidence).

Thus my instincts to continue this protest against washing my hair, and to wear a leopard print top and some hot pink stilettos, and turn up an hour late had to be abandoned in favor of clean hair, black suit, with no flare or anything that stands out other than my vast experience and impeccable professionalism (can you tell I´ve bought into all this bullshit?). Fingernails clean and manicured? Check. Shoes shined? Check. Self-esteem? Uh...check.


Deep breath. Remember, you don't give a fuck if you get this job. Oh, but you do, but your life has been a path leading to this. Shut up! You don't give a fuck, you're gonna ruin it if you are overly eager. Ok, these people are gonna have to beg me to work for them. Please hire me. Don't you see everything I've ever done has lead up to this point? Whatever, I might consider a position here with you chumps. I might let my talent grace your organization. Oh, please, pretty please don´t let me wither away into an unemployment statistic.

"Hello, I'm here to interview with Ms. Rodriguez"

"Right this way, I'll lead you to the interview panel," says the receptionist.

Interview...um...panel? What the fuck? All I heard was, "Let me lead you to the dungeon of doom where you will have your soul picked apart and you will have to justify your measly existence before a board of PhD's in Bullshit Detection."



Another deep breath.

When I get nervous it's physiological. My voice shakes. I don't give a fuck about this job so why is my voice shaking? My hands tremble. These bastards are gonna have to beg me to work here, so why can't my hands stay still? I can't find the right words. I don´t know why I am acting all jumbled and flustered, these motherfuckers should be jumbled and flustered.

Later in my mind I torment myself by revising what I had said and imagining I could start over again and practice what I would say if given another chance, something more eloquent, more thought through.

Well, I guess I have going for me that I've spent my entire life squirming my way out of uncomfortable situations without anyone seeming to notice I was squirming and nervous as hell, so maybe I did ok.

Fingers are crossed that the outlet I'm trying to plug the lamp of my livelihood into isn't burned out, or worse, filled with water and ready to electrocute me to my economic death.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was just about to post this, when I got a call with a job offer. As you may have suspected, I didn´t make them beg. I thought about it for a second though.

"The Dogs of War" by Stephen Poff found on Flickr.

"The Directors of Distillers Company Limited" by Charlesfred found on Flickr.

"My, what is that you´re wearing?" by Dave77459 found on Flickr.

A Day in the Life of an Unemployed Blues

You are Bluestreak (or Blue Streak, as you have not been entirely unambiguous in terms of the spacing between your bisyllable name).

You are 32 years old, recently turned.

You are unemployed, by choice, as if that means anything other than that you are fucking nuts.

You wake up late.

You look at the clock and feel incredibly guilty, not because you have anywhere to be or anything to do, but because somewhere in the back of your mind you have the hunch that productive human beings who contribute to the machinery of society wake up earlier than this.

Yawn.

You opt not to shower again, and a heated debate takes place in your mind as to whether or not the brushing of one´s teeth is absolutely essential. The voices in favor of brushing win, since you know what happens to those that don´t take care of their teeth.

You read your book (you're reading In the Name of the Rose again, cause you love it and you just can´t buy another book right now until you finish the twenty million fucking books on your shelf you haven't read yet, that you wonder what the hell kind of intellectual ambition/jackassery possessed you to buy them to begin with).

You walk the streets that many people back home would give their left eye to visit on vacation but somehow that doesn´t mean shit.

You walk on the sunny side of the street y hace un día de miedo and you wonder why you ever thought looking for a job was a good idea.

An old woman speaks to you. "My child, guapa, can you spare any change for a coffee?" You reach into your pocket and purposely pull out only part of the change and tell her that´s all you have on you. You´re fucking unemployed and you can´t be giving money away, you reason. It´s not enough to get her a cup of coffee. Then you realize that not only is this the most interesting conversation you´ve had all day, but it´s the only conversation you´ve had all day.

You decide you need a cup of coffee and you go to the place you took your best friend when she came to visit, eleven (yes, eleven) years ago and you stare at the table where you sat with her and the fist of loneliness hits. When you go to pay with the change leftover in your pocket you realize there are only twenty cents there and you feel like an asshole for having not given all of it to the woman. Ugh. I can´t win.

You mosy on home and release the culinary monster that lives inside you on days when you have fuck all to do besides consume, prepare to consume, or think about your consumption.

Eventually, Luigi shows up to enjoy the roast chicken you have been basting, cooing at and otherwise speaking in infant-directed talk to for a couple of hours now.

The chicken is graciously and lovingly received by both self and spouse and the unidentifiable carcass, which are the only remains that you were unable to inhale are disposed of, as are the ideas you had of making chicken salad with the leftovers.

You then decide to witness the offering and slaying of a blogger virgin to the gods. Who are you to laugh? You can´t even think of anything to write about. But this qualifies as human interaction, right?

You drink way too much coffee for someone with nothing to do.

You space out for a bit and when you come to you realize you have re-grouted your entire kitchen floor and you go, "Oh fuck am I ever bored".

You decide it might be a good idea to start job hunting soon.

-Bluestreak

It might just be my imagination.

I have been house/home-hunting/obsessing for some time now.

Let's face it, I've done a lot of pissing and moaning. We could have filled the swimming pool we don't own with my tears of woe-is-me self pity.

I've been utterly frustrated by what I can afford in this city that has Manhattan prices with Tijuana salaries (ok, I'm exaggerating a bit on both ends but you get the idea). So, with all the frustration and spite that has percolated in the crock-pot of my wretched soul for a couple of years now, I contacted a handful of home-owners who were offering rentals that were far out of my price range by sending the following email:

To whom it may concern (i.e. people I'm about to insult),

We are a couple with a stable income (bold faced lie), looking for property to rent for an extended period of time, three to five years minimum (if we damn well feel like it). We are willing to pay up to X euro with parking and all fees included (clearly an insulting offer). If you are interested in showing the property with what we are able to pay in mind, please feel free to contact me.

Kind regards (i.e. eat shit if you don't answer me),

Bluestreak

I wrote this email with all the spite my mean little fingers could anxiously deliver to my keyboard, knowing that I would be contacted, knowing that we would go see the flat with an "I told ya so" air about us, knowing that we would feel superior to all the greedy fools who thought their stupid little flats were worth a killing and who had hitherto laughed at us young folk and had drop kicked us out of the housing market by their irresponsible "prices-never-go-down" speculation.

Within the hour a woman called me and wanted to set up a time to show her flat.

Surprisingly, I didn't even get remotely excited. My excitement has been exhausted, sold out. I have no further excitement left in me to waste on this. Months before, when I would see a flat, I would show up and think, "This might be my new street". I would get in the elevator and wonder if that would be the elevator mirror I would be checking my hair in every day. I would pass someone in the hall and mutter "Buenos dias" and wonder if that would be my new neighbor and imagine the rooftop parties we would share and coffees we would invite each other over for and cups of sugar we would borrow. And then I would leave feeling defeated.

This time I had contemplated not even showing up. I yawned in the elevator and went over my grocery list in my head.

When we got to the flat we saw exactly what we expected to see; an overpriced flat that wasn't even worth the insulting offer we had proposed.

I wanted to turn my nose up and laugh at the assholes and think, "Who do they think they are with their shitty little apartment?" I wanted to shake their hands and thank them while thinking "Good luck to ya, assholes! I wouldn't live here if you paid me to!"

But I looked at the couple and I saw the woman, pregnant, staring at us wide eyed and hopeful. I saw her husband, full of pride, describing the new fine cabinetry and tilework they had poured all their money into. I saw a couple that had no room for their growing family, that had bought a tiny, dark, overpriced flat at the pressure of all their friends and family who urged them, "Buy! Buy! Buy, before it's too late and the flats cost double!" at the precise moment the market was about to turn on them. I saw a couple that needed to get out somehow, that had tried to sell at a price that wouldn't send them into bankruptcy to no avail and that was now trying to find a tenant who would at least cover a portion of their mortgage so they wouldn't drown in financial ruin and have some hope at affording their unborn child's future. I saw a couple that earned hopeless Spanish professional salaries and that had invested the little money they had managed to save on a couple of properties in the hopes that their future would hold more than a fifty year bondage to the bank and a savings account without a dime in it.

I saw us. I saw what we would have been if my husband had not fought my pleas tooth and nail to buy a house at the worst possible time in history. I saw a glimpse of the financial ruin we would be in if we had done what I had wanted to do. I saw myself, chained to my desk in the job that was sucking the life and spirit out of me that I wouldn't have even been able to contemplate leaving so that I could reinvent my world and self again and find fulfilment in something different and live a life that felt a little less like a waste of human creativity and potential.

I broke down in the elevator going down, this time not in my own self-pity for not being able to afford anything decent for my hard earned cash, but for the regret I felt for writing that email full of spite and condescension that gave the couple a glimmer of hope that they would find a tenent and escape their impending financial ruin.

Maybe I just have a wild-ass imagination.

I hope so.

-Bluestreak

"Se vende" by Adrian Coto from Flickr.

Resolutions of the teeth (and self) improving variety

Well, that’s it. Another year has come and gone.

Happy belated birthday, world (or I should say, Happy Birthday de facto international standard Gregorian calendar).

I’m not about to post my new year's resolutions here and jinx myself, like I’ve done before.

I will tell you that one of these undeclared resolutions concerns quitting a certain disgusting habit in the hopes that my teeth will stop resembling those of some poor chap that was born on the lower end of the feudal scale during the Elizabethan era and that my lungs will be in slightly better condition than those of an unlucky coal miner.

Ahem.

Those Elizabethan serfs had an excuse for the unseemly state their teeth were in; they were busy worrying about more pressing matters such as rotting garbage in the streets and no structured sewage system and oh, you know, stressful things like the bubonic plague. I have no excuse other than wanting to inhale poison for some reason because I guess my life is just too damn easy. My teeth have been unsuspecting casualties.

In light of my rediscovered love of my own teeth (and lungs), I’ve scheduled a visit to the dentist.

The Spanish dentist.

Don’t freak people, this is a first world country. I promise Bluestreak will not end up with gold caps. Although that would kind of rule.

Sometimes I think we Americans might obsess a little too much about our teeth compared to other people. Our teeth do generally kick ass. Well, mine are starting to look as if I’ve been munching ass as opposed to kicking it, but I’m generalizing here.

As an American I know what a dental visit should consist of.

When I go to the dentist I don’t want it to only last ten minutes and to basically just have my mouth rinsed out with a little white hose and then get pat on the back and be told to keep up the good work with the dental hygiene.

No.

I want my teeth to have the living shit scraped off of them and for my bleeding gums to be mercilessly poked at. I want to have to grip the handles on the chair in fear and I want to experience some mild pain. I want the procedure to seemingly go on for eternity. Then I want to be scolded and slightly humiliated for not flossing as much as I should. That would be a normal visit to the dentist.

But this isn’t a normal place, this place I’m in.

This is a place where fucked up things occur, like when a few days after my last dental appointment I went back to the medical center for my gynecologist appointment and the woman that assisted the doctor with my pap smear (i.e. "the nurse") was also the woman that had assisted my dentist with my cleaning days earlier (i.e. previously known as "the dental hygienist").

Um, am I dreaming, is this hell, or am I perpetually living in a Dali painting?



Ok, ok, one of my other resolutions (fuck it, I’m now declaring them) is that I’m gonna try to quit being such an ungrateful bitch and as you can see, that leaves me without a whole helluvalot to blog about. So in that vein, I think I should mention in my most grateful tone that my healthcare is free here and for mere convenience, I’ve felt the need to sign up for private health care at about eighty bucks a month which covers anything that could possibly go wrong with my body or mind, including my beloved grinders and biters. But apparently the nurses under my plan are jack-of-all-trades or jack-of-all-orifices.

Wish me luck on my next visit to the dentist. Oh and on my inadvertently mentioned new years resolutions.

-Bluestreak

"Mouth 4" by ysin from Flickr.

"Bailarina" by Salvador Dali

Warning: Consuming Raw or Undercooked Thoughts May Results in Half-Assed Blogging

Hi.

I've been silent because I'm...percolating. I'm out of a job and I don't quite know how I feel about that just yet.

I'm also "home" now. You know, the home that's not really my home (i.e., my parent's house that has never been my home). I fucking HATE the light switches in this joint, I have no idea where they are and the silverware drawer is in the darndest spot.

So, I'm in my country, sans Luigi. And it's a damn shame that you have to be separated from someone to really realize what they mean to you. Humans are ungrateful fucks like that.

Basically my time at home has consisted of me driving around my city, at times letting my memories spill over me. It can be pathetic.

It's amazing how urban organization can effect how you experience home and homesickness. I've seen the sunset for the first time in ages. The beautiful Arizona winter sunsets where the air is so thin you can see for miles and miles. I've gone from sprawl to density. Open, visible horizons to claustrophobic shaded cobblestone streets. Lonely, buffered, car interaction to get-off-of-me-and-quit-bumping-into-my-ass-human-interaction.

Oh, and car time = music time. And music time = I might cry at any given moment. I never drive in Spain. I walk everywhere, which means even if I have my ipod, I listen to whatever crap I have on it that I thought was cool at one time but has turned into a broken record. But in the car I get little treats (or little torments depending on my mood) here and there of songs I haven't heard in forEVAH. Today I sped down the freeway listening to Snoop Dog and, well, I rocked the eff out, cause I roll like that sometimes, yo.

So there's my little update. I'm silent because I don't know how I feel about job, Home I, Home II, life. I'm a crock pot of emotions and the stuff inside needs to reach at least medium rare so I can make sense of some of it.

Miss your blogs big time.

xoxo
Bluestreak

Blues is Back

I should have known that swearing off blogging would suddenly bring me something to blog about.

This week my ass has been Rasslefied, big time. She still has rights to my blog, and could attack at any time still, declaring a coup over my header or posting Japanese dwarf porn, like she did over at Praying to Darwin.

But since thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I know some of you eat your weight in deviled eggs and green bean casserole, I felt the need to post and to give you advice as your diet guru so you can keep those pesky holiday pounds from adding up.

I am on a roll here, dropping serious poundage.

Unfortunately, my weight loss is not the Oh-Cool-I´m-So-Glad-My-Arms-Arent-Goliath-Satisfying-Salamis-Anymore weight loss, but rather the Holy-Fuck-What-Happened-To-My-Tits-And-Why-Are-My-Eyes-All-Sunken-Into-My-Head-N-Shit weight loss.

But for you more proportional types, you may benefit from knowing all about my new diet, guaranteed to drop pounds like "Galileo dropped the orange."

It´s really quite simple. You don´t have to keep an extensive diet journal, or measure proportions or even step on the scale, because frankly, you don´t give rat´s ass when you´re on this diet.

You just follow this simple recipe. The trick is, you have to eat this meal every day for every meal. But don´t worry, you won´t even want to eat anything else.

Bluestreak Delight

½ lb. Self-centered Materialism
¼ cup Unemployment
¼ cup Homesickness
2 cups Self-Loathing
2 ¼ tbsp. Disappointment extract
½ cup minced Guilt
1 Bad Auspice, peeled (alright, I admit I threw this in cause it sounds like allspice)
½ tsp. Existential Instability

To make:

Put the ½ lb of Self-Centered Materialism into a non-microwave safe dish, wrap in tin foil, and microwave on high until the whole mess explodes and turns into the Realization That You Have Become A Shallow MuthaFucka Who Doesn´t Contribute Dick To Society. If it didn´t electrocute you and you are still standing there, excoriate that shit out of the microwave with an ice scraper and slop it all into a blender. Add the ¼ cup Unemployment, the ¼ cup Homesickness, the 2 cups Self-Loathing, and the 2 ¼ tbsp Disappointment extract. Blend on high until thoroughly mixed. Add the ½ cup minced Guilt and the peeled Bad Auspice and blend for another 2 minutes or until it reaches a ripe, shit-brown color. Sprinkle with Existential Instability.

Drink the whole slimey Bluestreak Delight in one gulp, and choke on it too. Enjoy with Salty Tears of Self-Pity, and perhaps a Jack Daniels and Ginger Ale if you´re feeling antsy, and a pack of Marlboro Lights.

The duration of the diet is until you wake the fuck up and become a balanced human being again or until you completely emaciate.

Everyone will be all, "Dude, you´re so skinny".

It rocks.

Happy Thanksgiving Ya´ll. Food is for pussies.

-Bluestreak

I might regret this...prolly not

Since my voice is muted with weirdness these days and my dirty fingernails cannot type a single word I´m happy with, I´ve decided to let Rassles loose on my blog this week with but a few misguidelines. She did, afterall, draw a picture of me.

Check out what she did over at Ginny´s house while she was away on vacation.

Girl cannot be trusted with a password.

So stay tuned.

-Bluestreak

Effort to change my karma

When I was in 5th grade I had a hermit crab as a pet. God knows what possessed my prepubescent mind to think that it would be a good idea to have a crustacean as a not-so-furry companion. But I loved that little pincher. I took it to school with me in a shoe box. On the bus all of the popular girls came over and stuck their pretty nails out for the crab to snap at and giggled and I gloated at the attention. In my mind it made me popular in some disturbing sea-animal way.

But one night I left my hermit crab near the window overnight. And in Prescott, Arizona it gets COLD and that poor little crab crawled out of his hermitage and died. Died of fucking cold. What kind of monster does that to an unsuspecting crustacean?

Karma, dammit.

Right now, I sort of feel like that hermit. I’ve been towed around to various places beyond what I would consider my will (ok, that’s my attempt to not accept responsibility for my life choices) and I’ve snapped at things that scared me and that I didn’t like from within my stupid shell that in the end doesn’t protect me from the elements.

And for now I’m staying inside.

Which makes this some sort of shitty-assed public apology for my friendship ineptitude (you know, things like not returning your phone calls, your emails, or commenting on your blogs). But at the moment, I’m inside my little shell freezing my little lobsteresque ass off.

Even crabs need warmth and love, but right now I’m just trying to find it within my own hermitage. See?

Those of you that have been blogging for awhile now must understand these funks. The ones where the microcosm of the internet becomes eclipsed by the macrocosm of those that breathe the same air as you and share your meals with you, whose smile you can experience if you say something funny and who can feel real pain if you inflict it on them. Not like you faceless internets. Sorry, that’s kinda mean. I love you. I know you have real faces that smile and cry and all that shit.

I’m starting to wonder how much of my blogging corresponds to a real desire for creative expulsion and how much of it corresponds to just another one of my forms of escapism or another attempt at seeking attention like when I lugged that little hermit crab to school against his will. On the escapism note, when I peek into the tiny fragments of your worlds that you allow me to see I forget my cumbersome life. Then I verbally eject a small fragment of half-truth in hopes of...of what? If it were true creativity, I would likely keep my blog private just for me. But it’s something more about the gratification of attention that leads me to believe this is really about escape. Hmmm, dammit if this isn’t a repetitive theme in my life.

And it´s gotten me fuck all in a tangible sense, and now I find myself unemployed, among other things, and at nearly 32 trying to figure out what the fuck I want to be when I grow up from within a damn seashell. But I still try to escape into your fragments a bit, into the multiperspectivalism you supply me with.

This week I only escaped a little and when I did I came across a couple of gifts that helped me escape even more and I gloated like I did with my little crab.

Mountainlover and Mongoliangirl had both honored me with this award:

In an effort to help my karma, which right now is badly influenced by the hermit crab window incident, I hereby pass these awards on to:


Mackin Ink especially for this post

People in the Sun especially for this post

Almost Royal especially for this post

Regardez Moi especially for this post

Whiskey in My Sippy Cup for a post that I cannot for the life of me find but all her stuff is good so check her out.

Moutainlover especially for this post (Am I allowed to re-give a blog award? I don’t care, I don’t follow rules here).

Tobi et al for the many laughs you give me.


Some of these people might not even read my blog and will therefore never really get their awards, but I don’t care, because there is something in those posts that I go back to again and again and wanted to share them with you.


(NOTE TO RASSLES: I would have passed the award on to you, cause you know I love every little word your fingers type, but you already have two of these awards now, and I’m sure you already blew them up poster size and put them on your wall next to your NKOTB posters, so another one would just be redundant. And plus, I´m still waiting for my drawing, biatch.)


Ok, I think I’m done here, going back inside to clean my pinchers.

-Bluestreak

Warning

Beware.

There are dangers of going abroad.

You could get kidnapped by FARC while enjoying a peaceful holiday in Colombia. You could accidentally catch a flight on Phuket Airlines and the airplane could turn into a "flying coffin". You could go down to Mazatlan and eat a salad and become infected with hepatitis. You could get caught up in a bird flue pandemic in China. You could get your ass reamed, as it were, by an angry bull during the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.



Lots of things could go wrong.

But the unanticipated dangers are the worst kind.

Like the danger of forgetting who you are, the danger of having the compass that guides your decision-making process malfunctioning, or the danger of the gravity of your convictions suddenly being absent, because this place is like fucking outer space, and you forgot; sometimes there’s no gravity here. You should have planned for that, because now you’re floating away into space and you should have been wearing your fucking space suit cause there’s no oxygen here either, you idiot.

There’s the danger of isolation that leads to an annulment of personality, an annulment of everything you ever thought you were. This annulment of personality leads you to becoming susceptible to contracting this horrible disease called loneliness that is not cured by other people anymore. It’s not cured by your fellow expats and it’s not even cured by the people you love the most that are nearby. The cure is still unknown. Studies are being carried out but thus far they are inconclusive. Correlations of variables have proved spurious.

I remember when I first moved to Spain my parents gave me these purifying pills for the water, in an effort to make me safe and keep me from the dangers of life in the big, bad abroad. You just drop one in a glass of water and it kills all the bacteria so it won’t make you sick. I guess they didn’t know Spain was a first world country and the water was potable here. They should have given me a fucking space suit, or better yet, another kind of pill that would make a day to day life of isolation potable.

I guess these are my excuses for why I’ve been silent lately and when I do speak it’s not at all funny or entertaining. I want to read all of your lovely blogs but I look at my reader and I’m overwhelmed right now. I want to post something that will bring you laughs and make you smile, but I don’t have it in me right now.

Maybe these are excuses too for why I just quit my job in the middle of a financial crisis.

-Bluestreak, unemployed and floating off in space somewhere.

"Kaleigh running" by Ryancbriggs from Flickr
"Spacewalk" by AlbinoFlea from Flickr

Tallying up the points of substance use

Lately I´ve been listening to some good music. "Will you welcome please, the Grateful Dead"

And, well, because my life is one giant fucking cliché, it has brought back memories wherein I ingest certain substances for recreational and/or educational purposes.

I´ll elaborate. Some of you may be shocked, others will think "that was nothing". But here is the confession about my past and present drug use:

Marijuana - The Omnipresent vice

Marijuana has surrounded me since, like, birth. I´m surprised I´m not a total pothead. The first time I smoked pot, I had a lovely pole vaulter blow the smoke into my mouth cause I didn´t know how to inhale. He was nice like that. The following 5 years can be summed up as me always having a bag of schwaggy weed. Always. My nickname during this time was Heads. As in, Heads in the Grass. I don´t really smoke pot anymore. I don´t think the nickname sat well with me.

So let´s summarize my experience, along with a point value system to see who the winner of this game is:

• Smoking pot while chilling on a terrace on the island of Kauai +50
• Smoking pot with a parent before going for breakfast with Grandma -150
• Husband having mental collapse after a bong rip and subsequently begging to be taken to the hospital -50
• Getting caught smoking pot behind a bowling alley by the cops and your friend passing out during the interrogation -250
• Smoking pot on a giant rock in a valley of Sedona, Arizona while contemplating vortexes +75
• Smoking pot and then remembering you´re an aerobics instructor due to give a class and your roommates are laughing at your oxymoronic existence -100

TOTAL POINTS: -125
VERDICT: YOU LOSE AND YOU SUCK.


Psychedelics

In college I dabbled in psychedelic drugs like acid, mushrooms, ecstasy, mescaline (yeah, I freaking ingested some synthetic peyote, ok, WTF???), and some other drugs that were acronyms that I can´t remember because the drugs effectively killed the brain cells required for remembering their names. Most of these experiences involved trips to Disneyland or a water park of sorts, or camping in the Arizona desert. I don´t regret any of these experiences. I would do psychedelic drugs again, if I were in a controlled environment. And by controlled environment I mean in a padded room with a straight jacket on and a team of medical professionals ready to euthanize me.

Let´s look at how I stack up with psychedelics.

• Take ecstasy at a rave in the middle of the goddamn desert where some idiot puts Icy Hot on your temples that temporarily blinds you and upon regaining eyesight finding your 14 year old cousin standing in front of you, also on ecstasy, and the friend you came with laying on the ground with a credit card in his mouth to stop himself from grinding his teeth out. -500
• Take mescalin with some lovely boy on a camping trip and take pictures of plant life, laughing hysterically all night long. +100
• Realize you should have pitched the tent before you were tripping balls. -25
• Take mushrooms and then turn up to the house you just moved into and have to deal with your new roommates for the first time, while your sister smokes a cigarette in the house, something that was specified as prohibited behavior as a roommate. -150
• Take acid with a sibling and then realize that being around your sibling without drugs already makes you feel like you need to be institutionalized, rendering the consumption of said drugs rather superfluous. Feel as though you would rather cuddle a cactus than continue the trip. -75
• Take acid and then watch the movie Rubin and Ed, the most awesomest Crispin Glover movie EVER. +80
• Accidentally answer the phone while tripping, and it´s your dad. -90

TOTAL POINTS: -610
VERDICT: YOU LOSE. WHAT´S WRONG WITH YOU? SRSLY.


Rx drugs

In grad school I became friends with a group of psychiatrists, one of whom helped save me from scholarly damnation by getting me drugs invented to help keep me from procrastination and worry.

• Take Strattera and write your Masters thesis in a week. +1000
• Take Propanolol and calmly give a lecture to 200 people, defend your thesis, and lead any discussion. +600
  

TOTAL POINTS: -1600

VERDICT: YOU´RE A WINNER. MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH A SPANISH PSYCHIATRIST IMMEDIATELY TO PUT YOU ON ADHD MEDS AND SAVE YOU FROM LOSING YOUR JOB.

So that´s my chronicle of substance use and abuse.

I didn´t mention alcohol, because I might need to do a tally that´s like 3 posts long, and I already know I would be in the red numbers.

Peace,

-Bluestreak

I ask a friend for pictures of when we were in college and she posts this on facebook

At least I know she´s been reading my blog. Here´s the story if anyone missed it from a couple days ago.

I hope she has this picture framed with my name engraved on the frame, because this is pretty much a visual representation of who I was in 1997 (and probably still am). A minor wreck.



-Bluestreak

Control (the Remote kind) and Home

I think I´m understanding for the first time what it might be like to go through withdrawal of a drug.

Boredom.

Emptiness.

The daunting task of searching for something that will fill a void with something that resembles joy.

Hiking?

Yoga?

Reading?

Art?

Additional family members?

Yes.

Will these things give me (at least) the illusion of having an ounce of control over my life rather than being a receptor for other stronger-willed stimuli?

Will they help me convert into the person that I try to convince myself that I am?

This week I read Xbox4NappyRash´s post about pressing "play" and not keeping your life on hold waiting for something outside of your control (in his case, waiting for his partner to become pregnant).

I´m waiting. I´m waiting to find "home" here, in its abstract sense, as a construct that my own unreasonable thickness will allow and accept.

Home and also other things. And in the interim I´m missing a lot of good living. And there´s a person in my house that shares my life, that loves me, that doesn´t know why I won´t press "play" so our lives can go on.

But why, when I contemplate all of these things, am I suddenly filled with homesickness, as a twisted sort of way to convince myself that my problems originate in my geographical location and not in that useless mental module that sits between my shoulders, when I know damn well that is not the case? I do this to myself to evade responsibility.

I know it.

But I get out of bed.

A flash through my mind.

Brown Road and Stapely intersection in Mesa, Arizona is suddenly there. Why? I don´t know why. There´s a strip mall there with a Mormon-owned restaurant called Fudgeworks, and maybe a smoke shop or something. It´s there in my mind, I haven´t asked to recall it, it just pops in and I go "oh yeah, thanks for the reminder of that random place, brain". This continues throughout the day, on my walk to work, while I stare at the screen, while I inhale a tapa for lunch. Random shreds of home make their appearance in my brain in a spontaneous spectacle I´m forced to watch.

And then I read Keywork´s latest and it hits me that at least my pieces of home are still standing and not inundated, and I could potentially be there in a matter of hours, finances and time permitting. Not like other people whose homes, in both the abstract sense and very real physical sense, are now under water. Home is out of reach for me, but at least I sleep soundly knowing that it does still exist somewhere.




Both of those posts I linked to above made me realize that I do in fact have some control over my life, unlike others that really do not, and I need to wake the hell up already.

Time to get ma shit together.

-Bluestreak

"Remote Control" by ThunderChild_tm from Flickr.

"Dwelling" by DistractedMind from Flickr.