July 30, 2006
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Little Miss Understood
Something funny about yesterday’s entry: even though I wrote fondly of it, I bitch about summer as well as the next person. Especially since I flake out in the heat. I have passed out from that swarming, swimming feeling caused by sun bouncing relentlessly off of the unforgiving concrete landscape, the dizzying stench of stewing rot that hovers thick about each dumpster, and that foul blast of hot air from sewer and subway grates that coats your limbs in stick. Bile floods my mouth and I dry heave when I see flies coating log after log of abandoned sidewalk dog shit. I cringe and spit when I discover that I’ve been swimming amongst plastic bags and cigarette butts gracelessly bobbing on the surface of the lake–pathetic urban jellyfish.
Sights, sounds, tastes, and smells are visceral for me. My physical responses to the world overwhelm me. I goose bump and tear up when I see something good and pure. When I feel loved, I smile until my face hurts really bad and blush until I sweat. My stomach rolls onto itself and I dry heave when I see destruction or injustice or rot or the litter box. My physical reactions to the world come at me so strong that I pass out. From what others tell me my reactions are not so common, but once you get to know me, you get used to my quirks.
Perhaps because of my peculiar sensitivities, the world is always many things at once to me. Past, present, and future fold onto themselves and exist in one layered plane. Good and bad merge and I can see them living simultaneously in everything, inseparable. Beauty and deformity are the same fascination. Death and life are all at once.
So, getting back to summer: I loathe it as much as I adore it. I feel this way about all the seasons. Although summer’s particular gift is that it is the one time of year when it is impossible for me to think of the future. I am stuck in the present, in the moment, sticky with watermelon drippings, unable to move forward until the brisk shiver of fall sweeps me up again.
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What did you eat for breakfast today? (I had peanut butter on whole grain toast.)::Random Tangent::
Speaking of seeing the dualistic nature of everything, we Netflix-ed A Streetcar Named Desire last night and I couldn’t stop seeing fat, jowl-ey Marlon Brando where the beefcake young Marlon Brando lit up the screen. But man, he was really great. Watching the movie you totally get why Brando is such an icon: he was so ahead of his time in his acting style. Where the other players in the film delivered their dialogue in the wavering falsetto of the day, Brando spoke plainly, spoke in a way that made you forget he had actually memorized a script. I realize that the female characters were supposed to be from a different class than him, but even so, their acting style reflected caricatures of women born to the upper crust rather than convincing, organic personalities.Also, what was with Tennessee Williams writing a female character afflicted by “spells” in every flipping script? If he was going to write these “spell-ridden” women the least he could have done was talked to one to see how women really have spells. If he would have asked me I would have told him to drop the feverish ranting and get with the belching, accidental farting, and hitting your head on stuff on your way down to collapsing in a puddle of cold sweat.
Any Netflix reccomendations?
Comments (8)
I’m glad I read that first paragraph before I’m off to the beach for today.
And to answer your first question: I had a homemade buttermilk waffle (we had buttermilk we needed to use up before it went south on us) with maple syrup and blueberries. Berries (blue, black, rasp) are in season where I live now and I can’t get enough of them.
^ Oh the beach sounds excellent! I think I’ll go in a minute.
It is a special thing to see both sides of a duality and appreicate them. Too often when one thing is unpleasant the tiny wonders are overlooked.
I’m baking a pepperoni and goat cheese pizza for breakfast. It’s noon! I’m allowed!
I agree about Brando in Streetcar. That mouth. To look at him he is an average guy, but to see him act in his prime, he is near demi-god in his beauty. I don’t like many movies but his old ones are some of my favorites.
Another old one that is a Brando/Williams mix is “The Fugitive Kind.” (Based on “Orpheus Descending”) It isn’t better than Streetcar but there is another look into the female. I love that one for the symbolism. Still, many people think it is boring. There is something of a barrenness and an ache in it. But I understand the compaint about Williams. I have a similar one about Shakespeare and his women of limited dimensions but he did have a few deeper girls on the roster.
ryc: I don’t know whent he Chicago Comic-con is. It very well may be a possibility. I can drive to Chicago. That’s where I went to pick up my car. I’m looking into it. That would be cool. I have never been to the San Diego one, but plan to go within the next two years. I go to Columbus every year, but Chicago would blow that out of the water I’m sure. I am absolutely checking that one out.
Thanks for the compliment on the photo. Tidepooling is going down to ocean at low tide and looking at the creatures, algae and such that are left on the rocks and “pools” exposed that you normally don’t get to see. This time we actually ended up going with one of the professors from HSU because my friend is doing a research project over the summer (she didn’t go home like I did) and this was kind of a special thing for the research students. Anyway, she invited my fourteen year old sister and I along for journey because we were up in Arcata for four or five days a bit after the fourth of July. I was desperately trying to entertain my chronically bored sister, so we got up early and went. It was fun, but very slippery and we really should have had some waders or rubber boots to wear.
But of course, those types of spells could threaten to turn a Williams piece into a farce. Come to think of it, that would certainly make some of his works — particularly The Glass Managerie — much more interesting.
Summer heat almost seems to be another sense or corporeal manifestation all its own. Like when I walk out of a climate-controlled office into the outside air that resembles a blast furnace. It’s jarring, the sudden climate shift.
Today’s breakfast was atypical. For the last day of Harborfest, my friend Eric (aka Chewy) hosted a brunch at his place (for the second year in a row). But it was a marvelous selection of omelletes, sausage, toast, hash browns, juice and coffee. With a room full of great people too!
I freaking love the jellyfish-plastic bag comparison! Your luscious descriptions are always so evocative. I had a plum and a bowl of cereal for breakfast. I don’t even know what cereal it is (we get it in bulk) but it seems to be some sort of corn flake-y type of thing. Anyway, I’m starving now, time for lunch.
I had a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch-knockoff with a cup of tea and the NYtimes, because I’m an addict. And while I totally understand loving and hating summer, I could never feel that way about the fall. That season never fails to put me in a great mood – there’s so much anticipation of the upcoming school year, the weather is perfect for long walks and warm cups of tea/coffee/hot chocolate, the good movies generally come out at that time of year, etc. In short, it brings out the child and the intellectual in me, leaving me with a smile on my face the whole time.
ryc: I was actually thinking of xangans who take these huge leaps while writing and how inspiring they are and you came to mind. It’s not easy to be constantly putting yourself out there, but it is worth it and it is wonderful to read. Scotland is going to be one amazing journey. So glad the opportunity came to one who does live life fully, but then again woudl it have come if you and yours had not been those types of people? In any event your leap is inspiring.
I think Tennesse’s mother was a drinker and thus prone to “spells.” This is all being typed while extremely hot and stressed out, so I’m not sure if this is true or not. But he was not really into women anyway and I think his male characters always stood out. Brando was absolutely stunning in that movie.
Recommendation: The Fifth Man with Orson Welles. Man, that was good stuff. Nothing like the oldies.
I happen to love summer, although the last five days have been over the edge.
Lynn