Many Mes

For a while now I have been having ridiculous mood swings, and they are really starting to toy with Me. Normal Me has always had a rather unjustified sense of self and ease. Sad Me is quite a bit more complicated than that, and not complicated in an interesting way. Complicated like Bruce Willis' needy girlfriend in Pulp Fiction. Complicated like that emo kid in art class who always had to up the ante on just how profoundly nobody understood him to the point where he made up his own religion to try to alienate himself. Not exactly like that, but like that.

Sad Me is like a very droopy Rage Face character stuck in the bottom of a muddy pit like Shadow from Homeward Bound in that scene where he falls in a muddy pit and you think the old, white-faced dog is going to be stuck and die down there covered in mud. Only Shadow has quiet, wise old doggy dignity and Sad Me is just sitting down in the mud, full butt contact with the mess, legs flopped out where they landed because I just fell backward like an angry toddler whose hips wouldn't be shattered by that kind of landing. Sad Me doesn't even look up; she's looking at her muddy hands drumming on the mire, the only amusement being the "plip plop" of her fingertips in the muck. She isn't even rhythmic about it, just kind of halfheartedly pattering at the mud she's sitting in.

After a while (or perhaps after a nap), I drive by in my car. I look at Sad Me like, "Who's that frowny bitch?" Then I pop a lolli in my mouth and drive off in my car, which is also a tiny yellow rocket that runs on love and outdated German techno music.

I wonder if I will always be like this, or if I will eventually become Happy Me forever, or if I'll be some other Me in the middle at some point. The point is, I can't deal with this forever. I want to be the best part of Me, the Me I feel like when I'm in my car or after reading a good book. Enlightened, calm, flexible. I want to be the confident chick with the badass hair that smells like the California wetlands that I feel like in between that other awful extreme. I want to be powerful and happy and, I guess, fragrant.

Since getting out of the shower I have just been lying on my bed contemplating these Mes as the ever-present Me cuddles under my favorite blanket. I think that's a good illustration... These bizarre, dramatic Mes zipping through the mind of a Me who is generally just kind of hanging out, seeking comfort and avoiding how she really should go downstairs and take that vitamin... but that would require pants.

There's Organization if You Look Hard Enough

I am known for growing hair, strangely enough. I can go from a boyish pixie haircut to a ponytail in a matter of months. Perhaps that was why it was easy to take the plunge and shave the sides of my head with a beard trimmer.

People used to have rock gardens, or maybe it's just a new age thing we pretend is old. Zen gardens exist. Now I think we are our own zen gardens. We take the time to sculpt the hair of our heads and bodies, to nitpick at tiny details in our grooming that would completely miss our notice in anything resembling "the wild". I can relax as I run the clippers across my temples, back and forth in a rhythm and watching what a mere two weeks grew from my head.

This is my favorite haircut I think I've ever had. Long, traditional looking hair when down, with hidden shaved sides when I put it up. They trace the sleek bone structure of my temples. I think they are incredibly sexy. But a lot of people don't, as I would have expected.

Very often the things I am most happy about are the things about me most criticized. Shallow things and deep things.  My hobbies are juvenile, the way I want to dress impulsively is trashy. Then go deeper. "Too nice" is what I'm told for turning the other cheek, for forgiving, for times when I'm able to put my anger aside and just let things happen. These things, to me, are the goals of evolution. Personal and for humanity. To rise above animal instinct into something better, something benevolent. To transform. These things are hard to do, even harder that they aren't understood.

Perhaps that is what my role is to be in the great human narrative. Some people are revolutionaries, thinkers, movers and shakers. I am the friend who will drive you to the airport before 6 am, or the girl who's really good at turning guys down gently. Just being nice, or at least trying to be. Striving to be an Uncarved Block in a winding river of knives.

I think I lightly injured my foot yesterday. Ran on hard concrete in thin plastic sandals to chase a loose dog. I saw him when I was driving home from work, parked my car off to the side -windows down, purse still in it- and herded him into a yard until his owners could be found. There was a sudden deep sting on one of my strides when the ball of my foot hit the ground at one point, and it hasn't been the same. Too hard of a step makes it feel like there is a shard deep inside my foot, like a muscle is pinched. I'm sitting here rubbing my own foot between thoughts.

The other foot feels left out.