i would go to sleep early. this was the focus, earlier in the evening. aha, a chance to get to sleep early, to sleep all through the night, to wake up refreshed and ready to go run on the treadmill to nowhere….
but it was not to be. things happened, people were involved, and now it’s late and i’m not yet in bed. i’m near my bed at least, so i can go to bed in one second if i really want to.
this was a big night for randy. his computer was struck by lightning a few years ago, and he didn’t get a new one till just now. and then they hooked up the internet, and now he’s all set. i keep telling him i write about him all the time on here, and now he’ll be able to see for himself.
i forgot to tell you my favorite xmas present (that i got; my favorite ones to give were of course the printers i bought amy and jim and dad). attached to one of the gifts randy gave me was a little sticker of a bunny. below the bunny it read “boys lie and kind of stink.”
i was delighted with this sticker, i mean, really delighted. i thought about sticking it onto my t-shirt with some tape. i haven’t done that yet (i lost the tape but i’m certain it’s around here someplace), but i do keep it on my bed (i consider the other half of my bed to be storage space, although i hate that i do this and am trying to get rid of the stuff on my bed, but new stuff keeps appearing and i feel like i have absolutely no control over it), so i can look at it when i wake up in the morning.
i mean, yeah, it’s not the MOST optimistic view of men. and it’s not like i think ALL boys lie and kind of stink.
some of them smell just fine.
but, it’s just that…the sticker is kind of heartening, in an i realize pretty weird way. it makes me feel, ok, things will most certainly continue to be completely fucked up no matter what i do or who i’m with – but it’s ok, i’ll survive.
i mean, i’ve survived this long haven’t i? sometimes not entirely sure how. sometimes i feel like it’s some sort of Super Challenge that i’ve unwittingly gotten myself entangled with. some impenetratable labyrinth that i will most certainly never get out of. trapped in a bad reality show.
so i shouldn’t even try. i should just sit back and realize this is the ride i’m going to be on, this is the way it goes for me, i should try to find something good about it.
kind of like a roller coaster. i don’t care for roller coasters. besides being much, much too scary, they also make my back and neck even more messed up, and they’re not in such great shape to begin with. but i remember going on Space Mountain with my old boyfriend scott (i’ve never had such a good time at an amusement park with anybody, and i hope that scott and i can continue to go to amusement parks for as long as we both shall live) at Disneyland, and trying to enjoy the ride despite the fact that i was quite sure i was going to die plus i knew i’d never be able to walk again.
mostly i just shut my eyes and hummed and tried to imagine i was someplace else entirely.
i have to say this made the times the roller coaster go upside-down a whole lot more palatable.
one time i was in las vegas with a boyfriend and i suddenly found myself in line for the roller coaster at the New York Hotel and Casino. Let me just say this – THIS IS A HORRIFYING ROLLER COASTER. we had to stand in line for approximately all of time (it was BROKEN, and i should have taken this as a golden opportunity to get the hell out of there), and then when we finally got on the thing, we were going along and i looked up ahead of me. i saw a really really really long climb…and then the drop. oh my god. i was completely panicked, COMPLETELY PANICKED, and i knew there was absolutely no way i was going to get out of this alive.
so i shut my eyes tight. and hummed.
this roller coaster also had a few upside-down loops.
oh god.
eyes shut. humming.
i lived through it. this wasn’t the very final roller coaster i was on, though. that was a few months later, same boyfriend, this time this wooden roller coaster at magic mountain. magic mountain? i don’t think that’s the name of the LA theme park. but this, too, was a chilling experience, and i was sure i was going to die imminently, and this man kept assuring me i would NOT die, that the roller coaster was safer than driving down the highway.
i did survive, but a couple of days later somebody was KILLED. ON THAT VERY SAME ROLLER COASTER.
ok, i can’t remember this precisely, perhaps they were only injured. but i think they were killed. THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME.
no more roller coasters.
and, way way way back a few thousand words ago, i believe i was attempting an analogy. trying to enjoy the ride. believing in some kind of theme or something here? some kind of purpose to it all?
nope, don’t buy it.
however, at this one little moment (and my view could change radically in the next minute or so, based on absolutely nothing), i’m trying to think of going with the flow.
enjoying the ride.
or at least sticking my fingers in my ears and humming, driving away all the bad stuff. the problem with me, grace smith (ok, just one of the problems, i’m just warning you so please don’t ever try to say i didn’t warn you), trying to just chill and enjoy the ride is that sometimes the ride just doesn’t seem worth it. too painful. too fraught with peril, with pain, with death.
better to just avoid the roller coaster at all costs?
and now, i sleep.
ok then,
deep and profound january grace.