foxinsnow's Diaryland Diary
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The Secret to Life
The secret to life is good tranquilizers, a good boyfriend, good margaritas, good red wine, Jack Daniels, an occasional Camel Light, a good camera and infinite high-speed film, a good notebook and lots of pens, lots and lots and lots of sexy, sultry, sad, dashingly lysergic and schizophrenic, uncompromisingly enraged, scathingly intelligent, howlingly heartbreaking, melodramatic music everywhere that "isn't about how your girlfriend left you or something else that's weak," good literature, owning all books of Diane Arbus' work (which I don't, gotta work on that), appreciating jewels, sea glass, stained glass, all kinds of glass everywhere, magic mirrors, going through the looking glass and colors reflecting light and filtering and distorting light and scenery and faces, as well as the colors grey and black, basic black as a fashion statement or a way of life, forgetting what the fashion mags say, they just want us to develope eating disorders anyway, driving past cemeteries, purging oneself of celebrity obsessions, getting "spaced out on sensation like you're under sedation," seeing Kathleen Hanna perform live, wearing a pin that has the word "DRAMA" crossed out, collecting Black Madonnas (and giving them to friends who need them), making shrines, receiving shrines, tending shrines, realizing that the fact that "you're going to reap just what you sow" is a good thing, perfect days and perfect sex that are only perfect because you embrace and delight in their imperfections, realizing that in most situations you are just being paranoid... then you need more tranquilizers and to lay off the booze for a bit until you have your mind back and aren't living on tranquilizers, realizing you grooved on and understood "acid rock" years before you ever touched illegal drugs, being a reluctant surrealist/absurdist/existentialist, wearing the magical ring your grandmother gave you when you were five around an earth-and-fire-ember tone necklace your boyfriend gave you that you slide through your fingers like a rosary, wearing your dog tag that your father got during Vietnam which means you didn't get it at Urban Outfitters, annointing rings and the second dog tag for the shrine to James because he's like the guardian angel for your mental health, living "in green sun, on blue earth, under warm runing showers," thinking things that haven't got a name yet... oh, now you need a higher dose of the anti-psychotic. What if it makes you dead again, your body expanding its flesh to compensate for your shrinking soul? NO, never again, not now, they won't let it, you won't let it, neither will your mother. Eating! Eating and drinking water are the secrets to life, and getting exercise, and taking your meds, and getting the right amount of sleep. Accepting that you have to worry about that stuff even though no one else your age who you regularly hang out with or who isn't dead has to worry about that. Being really vicious to drunk guys who hit on you at bars because they are barking beer-breathed "compliments" invasively close to your face. The older they are, the nastier you are. Should you hand them an Altoid? You're so bad at telling when you're being subtle versus obvious, or clever and flirtatious versus bitchy. Maybe you should avoid bars altogether unless it's to get margaritas and you feel like smoking and you're with your boyfriend. Who needs to go to a bar to drink red wine when you can buy it at Jewel, smoke outside on the staircase, and cuddle in his bed until you pass out? The fact that your secret undying love for Syd Barett pales in comparison to "the rare beauty" (ha, ha... bad love note I got once) of your love for your boyfriend... love dies all the time, but if you're lucky or patient and open-minded it tranforms into a new kind of love for the same person. "But I don't use words like love, cuz words like that don't matter." What they mean when they say "love" is two pairs of eyes each looking into the other pair like staring into the sun and squinting because it sort of hurts and makes you tear up but you don't look away because it's so almost terrifyingly beautiful but somehow still so serene and ageless that you want to sear it into your brain forever... and then looking into the real sun for awhile and then looking back at each other, seeing flashing lights, holding hands, laughing, and saying sarcastically but still meaning it, "Wow, what a rush!" Because everthing's a rush when you're in love, and love is all you need. But take it from me, not the Beatles. They're just a celebrity obsession I'm purging myself of. "I can't really hear you in the thickening of fear." Doing character assassinations of your exes... getting really vicious about it... showing their poems to your friends for a laugh and shit. Realizing you're in good company because Allen Ginsberg couldn't stand his own mind either.
12:11 a.m. - 2003-09-23
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