It seems that typographical errors are very popular among my readership. They show I'm "flawed and human" even "refreshing real." I'm pleased to oblige; I haven't met a spell-check yet that I can't stump.
Today was somewhat surreal. Traveling for work, shooting new pages on location, I feel unexpectedly uprooted. This may be because last week was difficult. I learned I don't do well without my lover which is new for me. (And new for most of you as well since my hp says relationship status "single" LOL) It's new for me because I'm one of those calm, cool and collected chicks who usually can kinda take 'em or leave 'em and who understands that life is full of time apart, alone and chill with it all. I came to realize that I was never actually in love before. That the things I missed were things that have become part of who I am -- like praying, like math, like breathing -- things I can't live without. And five days? Yeah. That was four days too long.
So now I'm on the road. And I grabbed my fold up easel and a small canvas and kit on my way to the airport. I'm doing a piece for a friend, a dear friend. For her aunt actually. And I brought it with me. I'm painting in the hotel room. I have my smock. Covered in paint. Knock on the door. My director.
Him: What are you wearing?
Me: What do you want?
Him: Call at 5.
Me: Yeah.
Him: You need to look fresh.
Me: ...
Him: Not like today.
Me: *shutting door in his face*
Him: *grabbing my shirt tail* I'm talking to you.
And the event unfolds in that way that surreal events unfold. And it ends with me sitting on the foot of my hotel bed, stitching an eight inch long tear in my smock. My hands are shaking so hard. And I'm not sure if it's from anger or fear or just from the drug called surrealism that appears to be pumping through my veins.
Me: I feel like the rest is a dream.
You: I know what you mean.
Me: That this, here, now... with you... is real.
You: Hmm.
Me: The only thing that's real.
And the song plays on my mp3 player but my headphones aren't in:
now that I know what I'm without
you can't just leave me
breathe into me and make me real
bring me to life
And I watch the equalizer image on the face of the gadget rise and fall and rise again and again, and I think to myself, as I shake and prick my thigh with the hotel needle, "How freaking pathetic."
But I suppose typos aren't the only thing that keep me human. And, dear Lord, I do want to be human.
One put it on a pedestal...
and left it there.
A crew member on set handed me a calling card. It's fashioned after black leather with white bold letters. He smiled. He shrugged. He muttered, "I printed 5000." He walks away. I look down.
Gamer Grrl in Small Doses
http://ejangel.blogspot.com/
...the pastor you always wanted...
I don't even know his name. I think it's Paul. I'm not sure. How do I take this?
I realize that I can't mend the shirt. I pull the thread taut and the fabric rips. I always tell you I'll be gentle. Tonight I don't seem to be able to pull it off. I'm bleeding on my black and white Batz Maru boxers. Did I answer the door in my boxers? I must have. But I don't remember.
I'm eating dinner in the hotel restaurant. I email a friend. I miss her. I tell her so. I carefully share life details. I tell her truths about praying for her and thinking of her. I type slowly. I don't want to... I'm not sure. Be too honest. Be too much. I want her to like me. I want her to anchor me. To be a constant like the North star. Then, abruptly, I pm another friend. I don't understand what I'm doing until I click "Send":
I'm so lost. Come be with me?
See what happens when I try so hard to be careful? "Life is R-rated," this same friend argued recently. Then I donned a "Guest" avi (male) and went and saw her dance at a club, talking up the patrons with a R-rated wit, no touching allowed... it's VR after all. I stayed across the room. Three paid "exotic dancers." Guaranteed of age. Smart. Mature. They are the only women in the room. Verified and quantified. I feel... nothing. I feel a void. I close my screen. I stare into the dark hotel room. This is a person I was once in love with. I know that now because of that same sense of missing that I feel now for you. This is a person that I see now as a... what? Older sister? Mother? Ex-lover (though we didn't)? And I feel... still.
Bits and pieces of conversations, shared and first-hand, drift to me:
"There, in that quiet, with the children, before the fire, we sat at the center of a tempest and there was stillness."
"The hugs were weird. I think she misses them."
"...I miss her hugs."
"Who can I turn to? Who can I talk to?"
"Why? Of all people why is this happening to her?"
"When I tell you I want you. I mean it. In so many ways, Angel."
"Do you think they'd miss me if I were gone? Do you think they'd be okay?"
"Go thy way. For he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name..."
Voices (some I have never heard) haunt me. I imagine images on cards of how I am seen by my world. I want to be the punk Christian version of Bradley Trevor Greive that startlingly so many blog subscribers tell me I am. I want to be th desexualized, gender-neutral, happy-go-lucky grrl that rolls with life like a Big O or a rounded off missing piece.
I want to go see "Religulous" and marvel at Larry Charles' seamless direction of delightfully scathing Bill Maher's deconstruction of everything that I hold sacred... because he's not. He's skewering the heinous corruption that man does in the name of *their* God who is nothing like my God at all. Bill is tearing down the facade of denomination...
Oh my gosh. And there it is. The control. The forcing into a box. The marginalization of the human soul, of the passion (not of Christ) but of our lives.
The heart of why I sat today not knowing what to write... knowing that Christ would just take me there.
Me: I can't believe I just told you that.
You: I liked it. Very much.
Me: *blush*
You: I hate it when you self-edit.
We try so hard to compartmentalize and control and reign in everything around us. We want our children to be quiet and calm and clean. We want our hearts to be focused and pure. Our lives to be routine. We want our Sunday blogs on Sunday (man's time). We want our pastors unemotional and steady as the rocks they can pretend to be.
We want our game designers on pedestals where we can leave them when we have real life to attend to.
I want to go see "Religulous" with strangers. I want to walk out into the lobby afterwards and laugh my skinny butt off about the ineptitude of the religious convention and not have to worry whose feelings I'm going to hurt or whose sensitivities I'll offend. I want to publish cartoon strips featuring the Robo Pope with the shiny red shoes. I want to blow off work and fly to Washington just long enough to take you in my arms and kiss you like I have thirty thousand times in my head, to hear you gasp my name into my hair... then take your roommate raving with the fake ID Tommy in Tacoma can whip up in fifteen minutes flat.
I don't want to be Bradley Trevor Greive. I want to be the Big Bad. I want--
Someone is knocking on the hotel room door. I look through the peep hole. It's Bobbi. I unchain and unlock and open the door. Bobbi looks at me. A moment passes. "Angel?" she holds something black and silky out toward me. "Why was Joseph's tie stuck in your door?"
I blink. I blink again. I shrug and I love... *love*... the feeling of the smirk that spreads across my face like the Grinch when his heart was still two sizes too small. "God's will be done," I whisper. And I take the tie from her hand and invite her in for a Coke.
I'll drop the tie in the mail, baby. Share, okay?
EJ
