The Great Beyond

Hello dear readers, and happy Sunday night. As if a happy Sunday night is a possibility. For me, at least, Sunday nights usually consist of curling into the fetal position, listening to Joni Mitchell, and crying into my pillow about any number of injustices in the world--my computer's lack of hard-drive space, my makes-me-look-like-a-McDonald's-employee EMT uniform, the floods in Fargo, the fact that I don't look good in lace... And then I usually eat some steak and watch The Amazing Race.

Sundays are also the day I usually examine my life and reflect on all the mistakes I've made and will continue to make forevermore. Earlier today, I watched an episode of Six Feet Under in which Brenda says to Nate: "The future is just a fucking concept that we use to avoid living today." I felt pretty guilty when she said that, because she's right. And I do that. I'm constantly thinking about what my life will be like three or four years from now, and how if I can just get there, everything's going to be amazing. I'm not saying my life isn't amazing now--it is. I mean, I have fantastic friends. I go out. I do stuff. And, Cadbury Creme Eggs exist. I'm a happy woman. But sometimes I feel like I should be doing more LIVING! You know? Like, I should get a motorcycle. People on TV are always doing things like that. They feel bored with life, so they go out THAT DAY and buy a motorcycle. And since they live in California, they take it out for a spin THAT DAY on a blissfully empty highway up in the mountains. They ride like the wind, a peaceful expression on their face as they gaze out over the Pacific ocean.

But in real life, you feel bored, you think: Hey, I'd like to get a motorcycle. Then you research motorcycles online for six months. Then you try to work up the courage to go into a motorcycle dealership. You try on leather jackets and pants. You think about what color helmet you'd like and if you're a decal or a non-decal sort of a person. And all the while you're slaving away at your telemarketing job, putting maybe $20 a week into your motorcycle fund, trying to live on lentils and tuna out of a can, and looking at a sad little photo of a motorcycle that you ripped out of a trade magazine and push-pinned to your cubicle wall, thinking: Someday. Someday.

I don't know that I should buy a motorcycle. I mean, I can barely walk. And I don't have a cubicle to put photos up in, but I do have a picture in my head of what the future will look like...or should look like: There are doves. And flowy white curtains. And a Jamaican man wearing a silk purple shirt and cargo shorts strumming a mandolin and singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' while another man, this man:



feeds me grapes.

I know I'll get there. I just need time. Three or four years. Until then, if you need me on a Sunday night, I'll be in my room--hugging my knees to my chest, rocking back and forth and hitting myself in the face, murmuring "No, no, no. Stupid, ugly, stupid." Don't mind me, I get a little nuts without my steak and Amazing Race.