I had a party to get to tonight. My day has consisted of hours and hours of driving forth and driving back, changing clothes, changing my mind, changing clothes again, putting sparkly marshmallow-flavored powder all over my arms and shoulders and not being surprised that one or two partygoers asked to taste it, feeling debilitatingly hungry and then feeling debilitatingly full. No matter which way you slice it, there was just too much garlic.
Driving home, I was groggyish. And though I wished I had been able to have more to drink, I was also glad that I hadn't overdone it or I might have ended up in a smash-up. And music was a comfort. Songs that made me feel groovy, funky -- any of those words that one might not reach for in describing me. I have to credit Beulah with digging The Method Man long before I did. I in my little square world. But I'm onto it now. I like lots of things I didn't used to. And I've lost my taste for certain things I once loved. But I'm never rash about discarding such things. I have lived long enough and paid close enough attention all the while to know that much of it comes around again.
I recently read an interview with Orlando Bloom in Gentleman's Quarterly, and I was really charmed. Not just because he's such a super-duper pretty thing (and haven't you noticed that he could easily be Justin Timberlake?), but because he said all these wise things that made him seem kind and human and tempered. Maybe thinking you're going to die or that you won't ever walk again changes your outlook. I guess that's a worthy excuse. I know I've said this before, but I just don't like it when people are cavalier about saying things changed their lives. It just seems so weak that your life might be able to be altered by a book or a movie or a visit to Paris. Maybe I'm just saying that because I don't get that feeling very often, and my inner elitist believes that if I haven't experienced it, it can't be much. But I'm just prone to be skeptical when friends tell me that my life will be changed by going to this meeting. Or giving up sugar. Or striking the downward dog. My life feels too heavy to be changed on a whim. My life feels made of rocks and bolted down. Lest anyone should want to steal it as they pass through.
In any case, I can't really begrudge someone the life-altering experience of nearly dying. I don't know what it's like, but I do know that things that make us contemplate our mortality have more power than I would like them to.
But we made great time.
Don't go against the grain if you can't handle it.
