Theme Songs, Quotations, And Lucidity
It rained a little last night, thank God. I don’t feel right unless there’s rain once in a while. It’s one of the two things I don’t like about the summer–no rain, and sweating. I hate sweating.
Well, most of the time.
What I do like about summer is that people generally seem happier. And the kids are definitely happier. I like the smell of fresh-cut grass, and I like seeing the trees dancing every time the wind breathes.
I do not, however, like living in a neighborhood where people take the Glorious Fourth as an excuse to blow sh!t up every night from the 28th of June to the 7th of July. WTF is wrong with people? It’s enough to make one wish for a monsoon from the 3rd to the 5th. If only because all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood are twitching with shell shock.
No, Weasel Boy isn’t done yet. I’m on the last scene, the cemetery scene. When I finish I’ll have a rough draft–what Caitlin Kittredge calls a Draft Zero. I’ll celebrate with baking bagels or something. Or sourdough bread, since I left the starter out all night. Might as well.
Last but not least, on this most random of Thursdays, I’ll give you two theme songs. The first is Dante Valentine’s theme song, the one I listened to whenever I really needed to get inside her head. It’s also, in an odd way, the song I’ve heard at important points since high school. Each time I realize that it’s also my theme. Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out–truer words, my friend, were never spoken. Unless it was Katherine Hepburn noting that life is hard–after all, it kills you.
And for the other half to the coin (well, I’m a Gemini, what do you expect? I’m of two minds about everything, and both of those minds are of two minds), this was playing last Saturday when I drove into work. Did you ever get a perfect playlist while driving? Like, everything on the radio just lines up and you’re almost sad to reach your destination?
Like that. This song came on, and I was singing along, banging the steering wheel, when I realized, shoot, this could be my theme song too!
I’ve talked before about how sooner or later, everything becomes grist for the creative mill. It becomes a knee-jerk reaction. Something will happen and most of You will be freaking out, or dealing with it. But there will be that one little sliver of You, the writing sliver, which will sit up and go, “Holy crap! This is awesome material! So this is what it feels like! Gotta remember that–how would I describe it?”
It’s not precisely a bad thing, but there have been times when I wished very hard to shut off that part of myself. It never happens, and later I’m always grateful, because I was paying attention, and I have the memory. Filtered maybe through the lens of the language I’d use to describe the event, which isn’t the event itself–the map is not the territory, but I’ll take it. It’s preferable to living an unexamined life full of quiet desperation.
And now that I’ve mangled two or three famous quotations, it’s time for my civil adieu. Be gentle with yourself today, dear Reader. There is lucidity in the air, and sometimes a little clarity is a dangerous thing.
*wicked grin*
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