Bubbles of Plasticine

I have always heard people reference or complain about living/working under florescent lights, about how it makes them feel sickly or tense, and I just want to tell them to man up and accept this new century. I mean, I've been living in cheap apartments largely lit by florescent tubes for three and a half years. But then there is the rare occasion when I have been up all night and my vision becomes like a horror movie based on the flickering of a bad home video--everything shifts slightly to the left and then back into place at an average of 2.7 milliseconds. That's when I want to go old school and pull out the gas lamps like unto the nightlights that ineffectively watched over the Darling children's sleep in Peter Pan.

Sorry, that reference is probably a little obscure. It's possible I've gotten to that scary place where I could recite that book backwards now that Becca gave me a classy hardcover copy for my birthday. It's too pretty not to read! Plus I really hate homework, and where else would you want to escape other than Neverland? They have ticking crocodiles AND natural light!

I've had a few weeks of searing lyrical moments. Wow could I sound more ridiculous? But that's how to describe it. I've been listening to the old standards once again, to my nearest and dearest friends of 30's-50's jazz, but this time I've been skipping my favorite songs in order to appease my inner weighing system of fairness to give all the songs the same "chance." Which when you think about it is rather ridiculous, it's not like these songs have feelings. But that doesn't really hold much sway with my inner dialogue (yes I meant to put dialogue, not monologue).

And the result of this experiment? I have new favorite songs. It's incredibly strange, but when driving home from work one day--it ought to be clarified for my tough girl persona that this was close to four in the morning after a double shift--and the song "A Kiss To Build A Dream On" made my eyes well up. The wistfulness and simplicity of the plea totally got me! I blame the overt sentimentality of the season. It turns us all to mush--that and the eternally slushy streets that get my jeans wet up to my knees after two minutes outdoors can make one rather easy to squish down.

Walt Whitman said "I celebrate myself." I don't know if I know how to do that. Or if I do celebrate myself, it's from a sideways approach. Basically the way I celebrate what I am from day to day, whatever that may be in the moment, is by celebrating my friends. Because they are by far the best part of me.

Seriously, I know some of the coolest cats in town. Some of them--not Becca--don't even mind my archaic slang that makes me sound like I should be in a movie with Bob Hope (dude that would have been so awesome why oh why wasn't I born in the 20's?!).

Jessica makes fun of me for having all of these little pockets of friends, little groups that stay within their own universe, unaware of their close quarters, with me as the only point in the Vinn diagram that pretends to have anything in common with all of them. But isn't that how it should be for someone like me who on average goes through an existential crises every .6 months? If I can dye my hair for every mood, why can't I have enough corresponding friends to call to make fun of each different color?

I would say that every single one of the friends whose company I seek out regularly have only one thing in common. They can be warm and friendly, socially awkward and hugely judgemental, alienating or clingy, their interests and humors can be all over the map, but the one thing that they all share even if they don't know/like/pay attention to/care for each other is their complete comfort within their own skins. They are all, without exception and regardless of massive difference of behavior, the most unabashedly individual people I know.

And I love it. I love it, I want it, I crave that specific quality from everyone I get close to. So here's looking at you, kids, your self-confidence makes it that much easier for me to pretend that I really mean the "what you see is what you get" attitude that I throw in everyone's face.

And after that little tribute to friendship, I am now going to alienate all three people reading this by saying something that is going to sound incredibly arrogant: Is everyone constantly thinking, or is it just me?

Ok before you click out of this page with a roll of your eyes at my level of self-importance, let me clarify that I did not say I was better at thinking than anyone else. Far from it. Everywhere you look are people who utilize their brains and thought processes to much greater effect than I do--Andy Samberg, Demetri Martin, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement are just a few prominent examples (ha, you totally thought I was going to be get all stuffy and name off a bunch of philosophers and authors, didn't ya?).

So the idea is not that I'm the best thinker in the room. The concern is that I can't turn my brain off, and it would be comforting to know that that is a common malady. But empirical data based on my own observations suggest otherwise: i.e., the look of bewilderment from most friends when I launch into another incredibly detailed analysis of why this type of breakfast cereal is better suited for munching on while watching cartoons than the other. I don't know where to stop! My brain isn't a finely tuned machine, it isn't an instrument to be applied with surgical skill, it's an often misfiring constantly running blob that consumes anything and everything in it's path. My brain is the villain in a fifties Armageddon film.

So are there people out there who really have times of non-thought? Not a lack of brain activity, those are people in comas, but do people go through the day and just watch things happen without applying a motive or seeking to deconstruct it's machinations? That sounds like it would be a cool thing to be able to do on command. Perhaps opium is the answer.