I’d like to think that when Dorothy was in the middle of that tornado, that if when the wicked witch biked by, her skirt happened to fly up over her head, revealing a bright red baboon butt, she’d have to have laughed, even while her house, her dog and that poor old Auntie Em were floating away and her life hung precariously in the balance.

Because, you know: you just gotta crack up sometimes. Long before any sort of work strife, political struggle, flirtation-with-previous-states-of-poverty, breakup, illness or whatever will do you in, if you stopped being able to laugh and have some joy somewhere in there, you will have gone down way earlier and far more painfully than you would otherwise.

I’ve been the warrior I’m reputed to be this last week, and I have been busting my rump to think even outside of MY box (which usually isn’t much like a box at all: it’s more like one of those inflatable rumpus rooms you rent for some kid’s birthday party or a street fair — and yes, I mean outside that OTHER “my box,” too), and step outside my comfort zones to do my damndest to make this all better in a way where it’s hopefully better from here on out. No progress to speak of in terms of the results of my efforts yet, but it doesn’t matter because I don’t want to talk about that stuff today, anyway.

(And seriously? You can only answer “How are you?” with “I still suck,” so many times before you just want to respond by begging people to just put your mopey ass DOWN, for fuck’s sake, you know?)

Instead, I’d like to have a giggle at that witch of the west with her crimson baboon butt, or, in my case, over the needed eviction of Philip Glass.

* * *
As far as the rest of my life goes, it’s been a pretty okay week. A handful of nights back, for instance, I was workingworkingworkingworking, as I’m prone to do, and Mark kept coming downstairs — with less and less clothing on — trying to get me to go upstairs with him.

You know how it is when you’re depressed: even though you know sex is a nice balm, it does a number on one’s libido. And in my case, that’s usually just about me: in other words, I’m down with getting my other person off, but I know myself well enough to know that when I’m seriously down, orgasms for me just are not going to happen and I don’t want to trouble myself or anyone else with trying. Thankfully, even though my sweetie is a bio-boy, our sexlife is blissfully free of most hetero dynamics. For instance, I’ve never had to let go of the very nice queer thing where you sometimes will have a few sessions where you just take turns getting each other off, at different (and extended) times the same night, or on different nights altogether. In fact, in some of my life when I’ve partnered with men, one of my biggest bitches has been that bizarre heteronormative idea where folks seem to think that people are supposed to come from the same thing — especially when it’s the stuff women don’t usually come from in the first place, and men often don’t even find that interesting — or at the same time, or even on the same night (you have no idea how many times in a day when answering advice questions, for various reasons, I find myself sighing and saying out loud “Oh, poor straight people.” For real, and yes, I know that’s patronizing and I’m terribly sorry). While that’s all groovy when it happens, and plenty of times I do want to get off when my partner has or will, too, there are also plenty of times where I just don’t want to be distracted by my own desires for orgasm (or vice-versa), and I’d rather focus all my attention on my partner or have them focus all of theirs on me.

Plus, being naked is my happy space. In other words, part of the reason I’m so damn naked all the time is because I’m generally feeling pretty groovy so I want to run around without underpants like a hyperactive four-year-old. But when I’m feeling crappy or hyper-vulnerable, clothing is an armour for me, and I like to keep it on.

So, eventually, I headed upstairs, clearly getting the more-than-subtle hint that Mark wanted to get it on, with the hope that he was cool with a for-him-only turn.

Mr. Price is not a light the candles, put out the flowers, cover the bed in rosepetals for sex kind of guy — neither am I. We’re more usually the kick the laundry aside and hope you land somewhere near the bed for sex kind of people. I’d made clear the day before, however, that the bedroom was SUCH a freaking disaster that I couldn’t even think about sex in there: I could only wonder when the hell someone was going to call the health department and hope Sofia didn’t get forever lost in the piles while we were sleeping at night. So, I got led by the hand into his office — we both have our own rooms/offices here: it’s a strong cohabitation rule of mine — and there were blankets and pillows on the floor, a clear space around them, incense burning and lo, little flickering candles.

You know, for whatever reason, if that had been about seducing ME to be the receptive partner it would not have been half as darling and cool (it probably would have felt like guys way too old for you when you were in high school offering you a backrub): but since knowingly or unknowingly, it was about seducing me to seduce HIM, it made it not only really charming and sweet, but also very nicely genderblurry-scrumptious hot. So, by all means, that night was all about him, but there were a few days there where the very pleasant image of my naked boyfriend and his candles and pillows and not-naked me was the gift that kept on giving for this girl. MeOW.

And the wonderful afternoon-that-turned-into-evening picnic my friends Ben and Joriel hosted for a handful of us; vegan lunchies, plenty of hula hoops, sneaky liquor and all yesterday were just completely brilliant. The weather was to die for, and a whole day out in the sun, hooping and hollering with friends was just the thing.

But the best giggle I have had in a while was because I found the notes I took after my dentist’s visit in Minneapolis over my last visit.

Allow me a little backstory and an admission of the type I don’t like to make often, because it always feels like setting myself up for more hell than I have to deal with already in terms of some folks ideas about my suitibility as an educator for young people. But it’s essential to get the beauty of this.

When I was in my teens and early-to-mid-twenties, I very much liked me some hallucinogens. Very. Much. For an ungodly number of times I dropped them, I only had one bad trip, ever, and a WHOLE lot of exceptionally nice ones. (Go on now: tell me how women “aren’t visual,” I dare ya.) There was a while there…well, let’s just say the primary reason that I said toodle-oo to LSD and her chums was because I very easily could have blissfully drifted into a shiny, sparkly acid oblivion quite gladly for the rest of my life. Lucky for me I don’t still do them and haven’t for an absolute age (sigh!) or else I couldn’t really talk about this stuff here at all.

So, you can imagine my surprise and delight when, while in my dentists chair, settling in under the gas mask, it became clear from the taste in my throat, the fog in my head and the auditory and visual hallucinations that my hygenist perhaps took my talk of my high tolerance for chemicals a bit TOO seriously and dosed me GOOD.

Mind you, they’re pretty liberal with the gas over at my dentist’s, to the degree that the first time I visited just to have them look at my teeth, as I set in the chair, I was asked if I wanted gas and replied, “Umm, for a consultation? I mean, sure, but I think I’ll be okay without it, too.” They said they didn’t know I was there for that, butcha know, I don’t believe them. It’s been very apparent that they love their nitrous there to me, every time I’ve gone in. I should also note that before the mask went on, she and I were telling some mighty funny shared stories about my high tolerance in being a McDego compared to hers as a Native American, and determined we wound up with the same blessing and curse: we bonded, man. I also know for a fact that she knew what went down with me with that gas, because the next day, she greeted me the way people greet do when you had a good one-night stand with the night before. When I came in that next day for more work (not with her, alas), she — who I had never met until our lil’ trip together — rubbed my arm, winked and said, “Hey, I know you….”

(I tried not to think about why she was THAT familiar with me, since heaven freaking knows what I might have said or done while under all that gas. But what happens at the dentist stays at the dentist, right? Well, unless you put it on the Internet, that is. Ah, well.)

Once I started to get the feeling that I was somehow (legally!) tripping in my dentists office, I first had a moment where I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating, or if I was hallucinating that I was hallucinating. When I figured out it was bonafide, I then had a few moments of extreme paranoia realizing I was going to lalaland, but thought it through: in a safe place, with a medical staff, everything is legal, I have a drug buddy sitting right next to me. Okay! Let’s go! So, float away I did, and an hour turned into a couple of days, and I walked out of there feeling as well rested as I would have with a full month of sleep, and as centered as the Dalai Lama.

I left there (gawd bless the rapid come-down powers of nitrous), took a long walk to the cafe where I was meeting a friend for lunch, and immediately 1) Googled the hell out of this to verify that it was even possible (and yes, it is, it’s just pretty uncommon), then 2) typed out copious notes in the hopes of making something profound out of the experience. I pulled up the notes today thinking maybe there would be something inspiring in them to jettison me this week.

And those notes net me something about as profound as the scribbles and cartoons I’d make while dosing in high school, hoping to later express my profundity, did.

(Italics are my additions from today. That’d be why they actualy make some sort of sense.)

* * *
Squares of ceiling, squares of ceiling, dots inside the squares make other squares, make other dots. Mmmm, negative space. Need more negative space.

Did Dr. Tye (my very odd, but very nice Hawaiian dentist for a few years before my teens) use gas on us? Is that why dropping acid felt so homey? Is THAT why he was always playing the Cocteau Twins when no one even knew who they were and most of his clients were little kids — Cocteau Twins are very nice when floaty. Was very nice dentist: maybe he hit the gas, too.

She was saying “close” and “open” but they sounded exactly the same. Why?
(That poor woman trying to clean my teeth and me likely looking at her like she was speaking another language while I drooled all over her. Ugh.)

Paranoia first/inner peace/deep acceptance/sense of balance — teeth in better shape than one thinks, even before work? More important to mental health?
(I sat thinking about that one for a while after making that note before my friend came, convinced that having perfectly clean teeth was this totally undiscovered path to perfect health and happiness. Then I sat thinking that maybe this is why people went into dentistry in the first place, having that insight themselves, and thinking they needed to be some sort of spiritual teeth gatekeepers. Then I had a cup of coffee and found my sanity again.)

SUNNY!

Need to defrag brain or nervous system? (Shit, apparently.)

Nerve endings in teeth and mouth: link to spinal nerves, brain? Changes feeling of temperature? Did not feel warm or cool - like sitting in bathwater where temp. is same as body temp. Limbo-zone between chakras? Why?

Do same things tomorrow: breathe deep, maybe pant, let go earlier, don’t worry (be happy!): find way to say thank you.
(I was SO hoping to be able to have the same sort of experience the next day when I went in for fillings, rather than just a cleaning, but alas, it was pretty obvious once I started the gas that I wasn’t inhaling anything close to the amount I was the day before. On top of that, idiot-me had decided that given how great gas could really be, I’d try and get filled without any novocaine. Not only did that immediately conjure up very vivid memories of having had that done nonelectively when I was little, it also hurt like a MOTHER. So, if I was even going to get a mini-buzz from the gas that second time, I pretty much killed that outright. Bummer.)

* * *

Anyway, ummm…yeah. Some seriously profound stuff in there, as always with post-drug-induced notetaking. Some things never change, including how utterly silly they remain.

filed under Heather Corinna | my fine romance | subconscious life | apropos of nothing
posted on Thursday, July 5th, 2007 at 6:40 pm

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