August 12, 2005

12:29 a.m.

Camping with No Bugs, and the Conundrum of Yi

...is easy when you're in the living room. Yes, I found my tent in the eaves at my sister's house, brought it home and pitched it. With the balcony door propped open a little, I could even hear crickets.

I also turned the telly around so it faced the tent door. I don't watch a lot of tv; in fact I don't have cable, and there is no reception at all without it, so I watch the occasional movie and leave it at that. But I thought, how cool to put the air mattress in the tent and watch Truly, Madly, Deeply (for about the eighth time) from the comfort of my tent. Okay, and here's the other weird thing I do when I watch tv... I use some really good headphones with a long cord. It blocks out neighborhood noise and lets me listen at the optimal volume without disturbing the neighbors when the big music comes on. So, back to the scenario: I watched the movie in awesome comfort, with a little paper lantern hung from the top of the tent with a night light bulb in it. I also had tissues at hand, because I cry copiously at the end. I cry until I'm assured of not breathing through my nose for at least half an hour. I cry until my glasses get salt spray on them and my eyelids break out in tiny red spots. It's a brilliant story, superbly cast and rendered, and the wonderful surprise at the end always takes me back to the first time I saw it, and didn't know what was going to happen. It's all profoundly beautiful, so I cry.

And this time, I also cried because I was sad.

Love ain't the movies. It never was, and it won't be. It took me so long to realize that. I put so much store, in my younger years, in finding a love that was movielike, and somehow always expected it to be. I feel, not unlike Ann Bannon, that my rich inner life always surpassed what I was able to nurture out here. And I realize that that may not change a great deal. I may be rather unpartnerable. And while that's not terrible, and I do feel that some people are meant to do other things before they partner, the other night it made me very sad, because I miss being in love, really in love, and I haven't felt that for a very long time. And now it's all tainted with the certainty that, shortly, I wouldn't be able to stand whomever it was anyway. Every single guy I've ever dated has become tedious or repulsive or otherwise unstandable in the end.

Maybe that's why I couldn't sleep, and didn't sleep until about 3:30, so I was quite fried at rehearsal yesterday. But we got a lot accomplished, and today I visited Steve who is doing much better, and we had some good conversation and went swimming in a pond and went out to dinner. I'm happy for him that he's on his journey of self discovery. But I've also disconnected a lot emotionally, come back into myself. It feels strong and lonely at the same time, which doesn't make sense. Or maybe it feels strong and lonely in alternate hours. I've been a little tired this week too, no running. We walked a lot in Maine but I feel under-exercised. I just want to eat cheesecake and take naps.

Anyway, I slept in the tent again last night and had a better time. Tonight when I got home I put it away so I could reconstruct the living room and put the Reiki table back up. Wes is coming for a session, finally, on Monday. Tomorrow is an open day and then we have gigs all weekend. Carol is singing a bit better now.

Dar just got a part in some Showtime series episode that's shooting in Providence. I ask him what the show is and he doesn't know, he can't remember, they didn't tell him, whatever. These casting calls can be impersonal and crowded and usually you don't get the part, so he downplays it to the point where I really don't have any information about it yet. But by golly, they confirmed today that he got the part, and he has a couple of scenes with a bunch of lines, so he's very pleased.

One more thing before I go sleep in my own bed -- okay, I had this dream last night, and somehow I had made a connection with a Chinese god named Yi. I don't remember what it was, but I was telling Chris about it -- this very auspicious connection -- and he's a little hard of hearing, so in the dream he was saying, "Yeen? Yeed?" and I was saying, "No, YI," and spelling it, "Why - Eye!" When I woke up and was coherent enough, I looked it up on the web, because of course I've never actually HEARD of a Chinese god named Yi. And, in fact, there is one. The one blurb I read about him doesn't seem to make a lot of sense or have anything to do with me, but I'll have to do a little more research. If I find anything that seems significant, I'll let you know. Meanwhile, I guess a door opened to the Akashik Records while I was asleep and Yi happened to be standing there. Why Eye? Eye don't know.