Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Pondering the meaner shades of crimson...


"The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?"
--Holly Golightly

I do.

Last night I dreamt about a young man with psychic powers & a mullet haircut who told me: "You aren't going to make it; you don't dance." This feels packed with meaning but I cannot unpack what it might mean, only that it makes me feel anxious. I woke up to the sound of sirens & forgot that Z. had a delayed start so he walked to the bus stop two hours too early & had to come home. This morning he told me that 90s music is way cooler than what's going on now (musically speaking), which I imagine is a teenager's version of the oldies & I felt very old indeed. Sometimes I forget it's not the 90s anymore.

I finally watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose last night and it was better than I expected. As a lapsed RC, this kind of thing interests me & gives me the mega-creeps at the same time. I couldn't sleep after I watched Paranormal Activity, which is kind of embarrassing if you think about how devoid of real content that movie was...I love horror & am not usually much affected, but certain concepts can worm their way into my brain & make me feel twitchy & hypersensitive.

I can almost always predict how a movie is going to end. I can tell you who the killer is at the end of act one. I find this frustrating. I prefer to be surprised.

Yesterday I was at the supermarket & I heard a woman tell her baby (okay, toddler, but that kid wasn't any older than 18 months, I'm sure of it.) that he couldn't have a certain fruit because it wasn't in season. Now, I am all for buying local produce & shopping for fruits & vegetables in season but does a child that age really understand the concept of "in season"? If it were me, I'd just buy him the damn strawberries & be grateful he's eating that instead of fruity pebbles. Also: I am still finding HFCS in everything, which is disturbing & insidious & feels more & more like we are secretly being stuffed to the gills with toxic crap. I still can't imagine why it's in the Saltines. I'm having a hard time giving up my Saltines. They settle my stomach on bad days & I like them with soup. Maybe I could make my own? I think there are recipes for making your own crackers in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I'm going to go & check. I'm sure it's relatively simple.

I am still dreaming of the day when I might have a farm with chickens & baby goats & a kitchen garden where I grow my own lettuces. I would not eat the chickens. I would name them & thank them for their eggs and they would lead happy little chicken-y lives scratching about in the dirt & whatnot. Being surrounded by ugly suburban sprawl makes me feel melancholy. I am tired of beige brick houses & beige minivans & the local crackpot tea party chapter whining in the local free paper about the liberal plot to unplug their beloved grandmothers and take away all their money. Ugh. I suspect I have a reputation as the neighborhood witch, something I find both hilarious & disheartening at the same time. There's good crazy & bad crazy & sometimes I feel surrounded by the bad kind of crazy.

Sometimes people ask me where I got my MFA & I say "I don't have a MFA" and I get this look that I am unsure how to interpret. Sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to apologize for my inadequacies.

2 comments:

Rachel Mallino said...

Susan, have you watched a documentary entitled Food Inc.? If not - I highly recommend it. We are fortunate enough in NC to have a store called Earth Fare that does not allow ANYTHING in the store that contains HFCS. It's a fully stocked grocery store and it's heaven.

Susan said...

Food Inc is excellent! Downright chilling, though...

I do a good deal of my shopping at Trader Joe's which doesn't seem to carry any products with HFCS. It's not a very large store, though.

There's a tiny little natural foods store in town I've only recently been made aware of, so I'm going to pay them a visit soon. There's no Whole Foods around here, or anything like it. The closest one is about an hour away. I already drive about 20-30 minutes to get to TJ's. Most of the folks around here are content to shop at the huge grocery chains, which sell lousy food for outrageous prices. Ugh.