Carpe Diem se dinges

So the Washington Post runs a neologism competition every year. Readers are asked to invent new meanings for common words, for example, ‘flabbergasted’ becomes ‘appalled over how much weight you have gained’ and ‘esplanade’ means ‘to attempt an explanation while drunk.’ ‘Flatulence (n.)’  is ‘an emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller’ and a ‘testicle’ is ‘a humorous question in an exam”. And so on and so forth. Very funny I know.

Funnier, I thought, is the ‘Style Invitational’ – you take a word, add, subtract or change one letter and provide a new definition. Hence we now have in English, ‘foreploy (v.): any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid’ (I thought some of the guys would like this one), ‘glibido (v.): all talk and no action’ (for some of the girls) and ‘sarchasm (n.): the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it. ‘Osteopornosis (n.): a degenerate disease’ apparently got extra credit, as did ‘ignoranus (n.): a person who’s both stupid and an asshole’.

But back to me. It is ‘decafalon’ that describes my state in this moment most accurately. It is a noun, and signifies ‘the gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.’

The day was hardly 12 hours old and-Enough- enough! my body moaned, slyly (it’s going to turn into Gollum if I am not careful) Give me wheat! Give me a tall cappuccino with wings! Give a chocolate! (any sugar will do, sugar-) I need it! I need it! I need it! (I cannot decide if the compulsion to repeat things thrice is a hangover from Celeste or has something to do with the very- dinges-Yoga Nidra class I had this morning. We Aum’d thrice, and then lay about like corpses for a long time after stating a resolve to ourselves, in our minds, three times again. Mine was that I resolve that my body will heal itself. I have to keep on thinking of this. Then we did what she called visualisation and so on.)

I managed yesterday very well with the healthy eating thing. I hardly noticed the absence of- things, and in the evening I did not even have a glass of wine, in spite of the fact that I have resigned myself that I will probably on give up alcohol on Monday. But today- I am hungry, I have a headache and I feel a little weak. I have not eaten less that I normally would, or, actually, any differently, but I feel awful. Impatient. I think it’s the early signs of coffee ((n.) a person one coughs upon) withdrawal.

Apparently it only gets worse, so I have a lot to look forward too. I try to think of glowing skin, sweet breath, supple, strong limbs and a loving disposition towards all living beings except maybe Celeste. But instead I think of Lindt Lindor dark (sugar, caffeine) and Glen Carlou Chardonnay (alcohol). What possible interpretation of carpe diem reads that one should not eat fresh dates stuffed with gorgonzola (dairy)? Eat dessert first, life is so uncertain, I read the other day. Everybody has a fucking opinion, it’s hard to decide who to listen. To cope, perhaps the greatest wit should guide one:

Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
love the reeling midnight through,
for tomorrow we will die
(but alas, we never do).

Dorothy Parker
(The flaw in paganism)

I’ll probably make it through at least another day.

Carpe Diem

No-one can accuse me of not being ambitious. I have the Deepak Chopra, I have the Khrishnamurti, I have Dr Fank Lipman’s Total Renewal and the yoga schedule from the Westcliff ashram. I have been trying to read all four at the same time which is quite confusing. Still, I am determinedly on my way to Radical Transformation. Mind, body, soul and with a bit of luck, it’s going to help get the bathroom at the flat redone. Miracles are the least I expect. I am starting with an acupuncture session this afternoon, a day ahead of schedule. I am dizzy with anticipation. I hope it is anticipation. I have had no dairy, no wheat and no stimulants other than the lovely Celeste’s brief appearance in the office this morning. What the hell was she doing here?

But I saw it as an early opportunity to start with lesson 1 from The Book of Secrets. I greeted her amicably. I felt pleased. Go Deepak Go.

June cometh and bringeth- something. Will let you know when I have it. At the very least it bringeth carpe diem.

Good bye and… good bye.

I arrived at work in such a good mood this morning. Regardless of the fact that I spilt some of my tall cap with wings on my pants on the way in, I sat in the car and listened to Richard Marx on the radio. It was warm, the air was misty with those dusty little bug things that makes everything so pretty- etc.

Our shoot is over. The movie is in the can, it’s a wrap.

As part of her post production duties I give Celeste a series of thank you letters to write to various companies, agencies and the crew- it is important not to forget to thank people when the big indaba is over, regardless of how much dick you had to suck to get things done for the actual duration of the event.

I love this absurd irony, that you have to thank people for the opportunity to perform sexual favours for them. I always thought that freelancing was a bit like whoring, but the older I get, the more apt the analogy seems to be. You gotta laugh, or you gonna cry. How strange that I have not been able to apply this neat little theorem to my relationship with the grown girl across the desk from me.

But anyway. Writing letters of any value whatsoever is yet another item on the long list of things that Celeste cannot do. Her standard letter, for absolutely everybody, follows-

26 May 2006

Dear -,

We would like to personally thank you for your invaluable input and professionalism without which the production of ‘(name of movie)’, would not have been possible.
We appreciate your patience and regret the need for the overtime on some occasions.
We hope to work with you aging in the future.

With Regards

I tried to explain to her the idea of a split infinitive, and the fact that a letter does not ‘personally’ thank someone. Blank. I also pointed out the spelling. Frown. And about underlining the date-. I wrote all the letters myself. Forgive me, but I think we are dealing here with a sure case of passive aggression that must be punished.

Instead- (I bought a book by Krishnamurti last night after movies. I have not started reading it, but I feel inspired by it already) I took a deep breath. I tried to be nice. You know, Celeste, I said. If you finish the things on your list today, you do not have to complete the week (i.e., not work on Saturday, which we do). She nodded earnestly, yes yes yes. We will pay you the full week, I said, not wanting to sound if I am trying to save money on her salary, but if your work is done-. Nice. Oh right.

She understood, I think, that the sooner we no longer sat in close proximity, the better for both of us. I think, also, that Krishnamurti and I have a long road and hard work ahead of us. During my time with Celeste I found a part of myself that I relish and loathe. Both responses need some attention. When I get in on Monday there will be an emty chair across the desk from me. Oh Celeste. What a time it was.

Love 101

And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up
For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;
A thing of soft misnomers, so divine
That silly youth doth think to make itself
Divine by loving, and so goes on
Yawning and doting a whole summer long-

So Keats apparently had an ambivalent relationship with Love, but the story goes that It seriously bit him in the ass round about the time he wrote this poem, and he lived unhappily for a while after that, I am sure.

I struggle with the idea of Love myself. Of all the clichés ever, it seems the most abused one, and it is difficult to even say the word without smirking just a little bit. I know I am not alone. It is a common problem, early in relationships, to decide when it is time to use the ‘L’ word. And the person who says it first is always vulnerable. It cannot be a good thing.

Right now is a good time to distinguish between, of course, ‘Love’ and ‘falling/being in love’. A simple analogy I believe, is the way my friend Caspar describes playing to win or lose at poker. The agony of losing, he claims, is greater than the ecstasy of winning, thus, he argues, most people play to lose. It is genuinely not about winning or losing, but about the intensity of the involvement. Once your ante is in, you want to play, regardless of the crap cards in your hand. You have to believe, having invested, that you luck is going to turn, and that it is worth staying in till the river, even though a simple calculation would tell you that a cold day in hell is more likely than you winning the pot. This is ‘being/falling in love’. Once one has fallen, to progress to the logical next level, one has to ‘get up’ so to speak, so that one can ‘STAND in love’. And this is invariably when one starts to cringe. There is a certain feverish madness involved in ‘being in love’. This disease has affected many different artists who have testified more or less elegantly to the agony of it.

But LOVE- is a different thing. Love is, (isn’t it?) that moment in which all this craziness ends, and you settle into happiness with another person. And that just about clinches the whole thing for me. Somehow this is where things turn a little surreal.

It should not have to be this way. One should believe in love, I mean, something made the dream that became the Taj Mahal, I argue with myself, further, and after, all, PEOPLE HAVE DIED for its cause.

Indeed. I tried a more scientific approach.

I Googled LOVE and got 1,580,000,000 results. It starts with the Love Calculator. I thought I would give it a go. The results were not very good:

‘The chance of a relationship working out between (you) and (him) is not very big, but a relationship is very well possible, if the two of you really want it to, and are prepared to make some sacrifices for it. You’ll have to spend a lot of quality time together. You must be aware of the fact that this relationship might not work out at all; no matter how much time you invest in it. ‘ Oh yes, that’s right. Mental head slap.

I tried random names. Dorothy and Johnny had a 93% chance of making it but Ruth and Dave’s chances sucked. Who has time for this shit? Clearly thousands, as it is the most relevant entry of the Google results. People want to know- what chance do we have? Will I be loved? Should I invest? If you gamble on the Love Calculator, you are insane, and deserve to be trampled on.

The calculator was so outrageous that my investigation stopped right there, for the moment. I think it is a long term project, as it is (I suspect) for most people who find themselves waking up in the morning next to an Irritating Stranger, or a Loved One, either way someone that have arrived in their lives and stayed, through thick and thin, in anger and in calm, in happiness and misery. I have a funny feeling that Love has something to do with the Long Haul. I suspect it might not be for everybody. I am unsure if I am going to like the answers, if I find them.

Oh Celeste

Ok, so I have become a horrible person. The pretty Celeste bears the brunt of this utter meanness, her long-winded stupidity no longer being a source of any amusement; I am now simply brutal, every time I see the opportunity. This morning she asked me-
– Do you think they will finish tomorrow? (I.e., will the crew manage to shoot everything on the schedule for the day)?
I thought about this for a while and irritation rose in me like boiling milk on a hot stove. But I remained cool.
– If I say yes, I said, what will that mean?
– It will be great, she said.
And then I said-
– If I say no, what will that mean?
She was then slightly uncomfortable, knowing the situation was not a good one.
– That will be awful, she tried.
– So, I went on, either way, the information is completely useless, even meaningless, to you, and you are just making conversation?
She became very upset. I felt her upsetness, and honestly, it pleased me.
– Well, I am just not going to say anything anymore, she started, and then, unable to keep the rosy hole in her vacuous head shut, as forcefully (hurt) as possible-
– I just wanted to know if you are worried about tomorrow-
– Why?
Of course she had no answer for it. The very idea that she should be curious about my state of vexation was absurd. She did not care; if she did not hate me by then she deserved everything she got.
– Celeste-I tried to explain to her that she routinely opens her mouth without thinking, and that I was tired of such empty noise. Talk, talk, and talk. That she fills space around us with words that mean nothing to me, or her, or anybody for that matter, and that the very pointlessness of it is somehow an affront to the universe. My currently mean little universe anyway. Eventually I just said that there is no point in worrying. It never helps anyway.

I thought about it later. If anybody else asked my opinion about the likelihood of shooting the schedule tomorrow, I doubt that I would have responded like I did. It is not unreasonably empty chitchat for a production office. But I am beyond empty chitchat with Celeste, simply because I suspect she is incapable of distinguishing what is empty, and what has meaning, or is, at the very least, useful.

I settle into this loathsome thought, wondering how much damage I am doing to my karma, how much meaner I can get. I think of Shirley MacLean in Steel Magnolias.
– I am not horrible; I have only been in a bad mood for 40 years.
This is not me. I have turned into an ogre. I am a monster of my former self. Where has the kindness and tolerance gone? It is time for yoga and mediation?

It is night in the office. Most people have gone, someone is watching some program/episode/show reel somewhere, and then it is over. Celeste is outside having a cigarette. There is some peace, but an uneasiness hovers in my head. I sip from the glass of wine I poured. Celeste comes back. She sips too. We wait for news from set, we hope that they will finish the scheduled scenes, and not go into overtime. The crew really hate that. Nobody speaks. Oh silence. Celeste’s phone rings. Oh hell.

VIDA

Vida is somewhere between Yum and Karma
and you left me there,
more towards Karma
too much coffee,
shaking, and no damn yum.

Hell man I guess was it too hard then
to find me between restaurants
there where we never ate
and never will.
Little messages that lie
Why
too much coffee and too little yum.

I think I’m gonna cook at home.
Poulet au pot
it never fails
to hail the start of a disaster
but I persist, convinced
Always by its delicacy, warmth, genuine
unpretention.
Yum.

Blah blah blah blah

FUCKING POETRY

Please god, I beg you let him be
the last to write me poetry
the last to send me charming rhymes
that promise gentle loving  times

it’s wildly irresistible
when a guy  pursues a girl
and writes her cantos that declare
the thousand things that they should share

he’d make a whole world with his words
the rhymes, the stanzas and the verse
the sweetest language; but I see
he’s simply not that into me

he missed me all of yesterday
but silent since I called to say
Coffee? Drinks? A game of pool?I’m flushed and feeling like a fool

But then he’ll phone again, all sweet
suggest a great place where we meet
and when I see him things are good
we share some laughs, some love, some food

and then he’s gone, a day, a week
He’s working,.. his children… to crazy to speak
I miss him, it hurts, I promise again
This time forever, I’m giving up men

But I guess if you want to play for a bit
I’m fine, I’m in, just don’t forget this
I’m gone baby, gone, the moment I see
you writing goddamn fucking poetry.

A POEM ABOUT PUDDING

I thought I would never see
Someone turn down creme brulee
I know some think they’ll go to hell
For seconds of the creme caramel
But when it comes to you, I guess
Eating more’s like eating less
There doesn’t seem to be enough
Of the sweet and gooey stuff
I want to keep on, till it hurts
And simply call it just dessert.

I am trying hard to be nicer today.

‘She would be perfect for you,’ I told Pumpkin, ‘very beautiful but fucking stupid.’ The lovely Celeste sits across from me, and I hear her talk on the phone, blah blah blah without actually saying much. She had an actor on the line for ten minutes without giving him a single bit of information that was useful. ‘I think it is Tuesday,’ she said, ‘I am not sure about that,’ she said again, and ‘I would have to find out,’ finally. Pumpkin laughed a lot. I don’t know why. He told me his great love at school, and even, perhaps, of all time, was fantastically beautiful, but thick as a brick. My insecurity spotted a longing look in his eyes for a moment.

‘I might know her,’ he said later, ‘she speaks very bad Czech, apparently.’ I was delighted to hear it. It is always tedious when people start showing off by muttering in a more-than-usual foreign language, and I love to discover that they speak it badly. Still, I had to stop speaking about her, before he started thinking about her.

A hard task though, as my thoughts are consumed by this thorn in my side. Slowly I have to take back the tasks I gave her, as she achieves very little. I send little prayers to heaven thanking the big Employment Agent in the sky for Kevin, who sits to my right, and quietly, efficiently gets on with stuff that I haven’t even thought of. I wonder about Amazing Annemarie, where she is.

‘I know- I know- I know-.’ I hear Celeste repeating forlornly, as she commiserates with some wretched son-of-a-bitch procrastinating on the other end of the line. She has this habit of saying everything thrice. Is there a word for words that mean nothing? This is the only language she speaks. Oh fuck, I think, please just get the job done, rather than waffling on, sharing your miserably ignorant opinion on whoever. If they tolerate it, they probably deserve it, but on my side it is excruciating.

I shout at her most of the day, sometimes I am just plain horrible. ‘You know what I have been thinking-‘ she started this morning. ‘I really do not want to know what you have been thinking, please don’t tell me,’ I cut her off. Yesterday she asked a question that I found particularly irksome, and I had to berate at her for a whole minute. Later I consider the fact that I do not feel like a bitch at all, even though the whole office must be buzzing with the B-word. I guess it must be unpleasant for other people, and for this reason alone I should try to be friendlier.

I should consider that she too, is part of the universe, part of that life which is sacrosanct, and that, according to that documentary called ‘What the &*&$# are we-‘ or ‘what the *&^% do we know-‘ (or something) we are one. Actually.

But then she turns her sad, inefficient eyes to me, about to tell me another story about how another task remains undone, and I dream of a big knife, a big gun, a crossbow. I fantasise about beating her with the receiver till she bleeds.

How do I GET here?

Some American Comedienne once said, “I know I am in love, because I am terribly unhappy.”

Hell knows, there has never been a truer word spoken in jest. Unhappiness reveals most things as they are. It is the truth serum of life. When I am truly unhappy, and this only ever happens at the beginning of a potentially disastrous relationship, I see things very clearly. Everything mundane, living or dead, conscious or not, becomes meaningful, pure, beautiful.

Happiness, on the other hand, is simply not a measure of Anything at All. It is the wimp of all emotions, the Timotei commercial of the soul. It numbs the skull. It is to be scorned and rejected. We should take a cue from the French, the masters of such things… ‘What do you think I am, an idiot?’ Charles de Gaulle said replied to a journalist lwho asked him if he was happy.

When I was much younger, I had a boyfriend Much Older (like – 32), and he pointed out the idiocy of the provision in the US constitution for the ‘right’ to the ‘pursuit of happiness’. ‘What does this mean? he bellowed. It means crap, we concluded. Or he concluded, and I could find no fault with his reasoning. Just as I could not disagree with him when he said that we should see other people, except I didn’t (see other people), till the end, and then he was curiously upset about it. But that is another story.

Happiness is dangerous. It is also a most fantastic film by Todd Solondz, but his thesis on it has nothing really to do with this paragraph here. Happiness makes you blind and then you crash into things. If you are in a car, this will be an old lady or a beloved dog. On a more spiritual level, it is in a happy moment when you take your eyes off the ball, and you start to forget things. Dentists appointments, tax returns, you mother’s birthday. It’s just not worth it, I think.

I am grateful that I have found yet another opportunity to see the world through eyes in pain, to rediscover the sanctity of all life and the inherent beauty of all things. To feel everything intensely, from a distance, to experience everything familiar as uncharted territory, a blank page on which one can write the poetry of agony. How great it is to be alive.