The Blood Club

I woke up this morning with ideas floating around my head like opalescent clouds (were they to be the tangible sort of ideas, anyway. They'd be pink and crudely shaded like cartoons from the 1930's, moving jerkily along to tinny piano, occasionally sprouting snake-like arms and cloven-foot eyes.), begging to be written down.

Unfortunately, I also woke up this morning at about 7:23, too late to take a shower, and just in time to throw some clothes on, mash down my hair, eat a brownie, rush out the door, go halfway down the stairs, run back in, grab my work ID, leap out the window, land on a double-decker buss, steal a sporty little yamaha motorcycle whilst moving, crash through a series of plate glass windows, slide under a semi trailer while machine-gun fire cratered into the asphalt around me, and hurry my way to the low-profile building that lives next to the Keene cinemas. And while only about seven of those things actually happened (I'm still finding blacktop shrapnel in my hair), it was still a trick to make it to work on time.

I am assuming, of course, that TDBanknorth cares about my punctuality. Or rather, that the crack team of capable managers and supervisors that theoretically co inhabit my workplace care. If this were the case, you might assume that maybe they'd check in with me from time to time, maybe shake their heads sagely, expressing deep disappointment in my taking ten extra minutes of lunch last week and clocking in as if I had only taken 30! It might make me feel a little more at home, y'know? Rather than just coming in, finding where I left off, and typing/counting for eight hours. Not that mind particularly, or anything. With the iPod going at lots of decibels of loudness in my ears and a mind that likes to wander, the day goes by like a breeze, sore shoulders and rumors of carpal tunnel the only evidence that I'd just served up an eight hour chunk of my life to the gods of Please May I Have Some Money?

If this were the same sort of scenario I saw playing out in the other cubicles around me, I might be okay with it. But, honestly, it's not. The guy who looks like a young Jeff Goldblum (behind me, to the left) gets the occasional visit from Jersey Lady manager, and the chatty woman who sits just over the wall I face is almost constantly conversing with my department's manager, affectionately known as Mr. P (in my music-induced I-just-counted-4000-sig-cards state, anyway).

I'd just like some human interaction, is all. Maybe I'll make some cookies.

Anyway. Pink, shiny ideas (which, on second thought, bear a striking resemblance to pink elephants on parade), left over from a nightful of dreams clamouring around my head like the jealous remnants of memories that they are. I've thought about starting a dream journal for years, or at least a notebook to carry around and capture their more rational kin, the daydream. And now it seems like it might be a good idea again. I've had a rash of vivid dreams in the last few weeks, starring the entire cast of my young life in some form or another. Everyone from my second grade teacher (Mrs. T) to a girl I met a church dance when I was seventeen. I'm not sure why I'm suddenly being treated to my life in review, but I am sure that I ought to be capturing it, writing it down, pulling a David Sedaris and moving to Paris.

Per a recommendation (it counts), I've started reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. it's striking, very well written, entirely believable, and capable of inspiring some pretty conflicting emotional reactions (horror;envy). I'm going to continue the recommendation chain, and encourage you all (my legions of readers) to take a look.

I'm also reading Titus Groan (for the second time), first of the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake. It's delightfully dark, full of the kind of macabre language that titillates fans of Edward Gorey and (to a lesser, more juvenile extent), Lemony Snicket. It takes some work to digest, and it's honestly quite depressing despite how hard the author works to get you to feel nothing but vaguely sympathetic loathing for the characters. Its dark, dank, dystopian and delightful narrative sort of drags you along as if you don't have a choice, and that's the way it should be. Plus! it was made into a BBC miniseries a few years back, starring a young Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Steerpike, the antihero of the books. It's worth watching, but I recommend reading at least the first Gormenghast novel beforehand.

This made me cry a little with happiness.