Memories, like the Bloodstains of My Mind

I can't remember my stories anymore.

People have anecdotes, pithy stories about people they knew, things they've done, funny things that happened to or around them. Everyone has such stories, and the older you get, the more tales you accumulate.

The more a tale is told, the more it grows substance of its own, so that, in time, though it may not be told exactly as the events occurred, it will be told in its own fashion. Every time. Over and again until the point that those who know you well tire of it. Or reminisce over it, depending on whether they have more of a penchant for boredom or for nostalgia.

This is what generally happens with stories. But there are always other tales that are lost through disuse--times of embarrassment, trivial experiences, things that may not arise in the memory until a particular smell, sight, or notion raises them dimly to the surface of the mind. Sometimes, they are lost forever. Sometimes, you know that the memory is there, but you fail any attempt to dredge it from the sludge of memory to the banks on which you can focus. *Poetic, huh?*

My memories have been mostly lost through disuse. Not because they aren't interesting. Not because of embarrassment (those personal shames I only wish I could forget--they sometime torture me in the depths of the night). No, because they are not PG memories, not fit for consumption in the workplace, and despised by my husband, who wishes to have chosen a wife more conventional. I play my part of good girl arguably well, but as a consequence I cannot remember many of the more interesting tales that I own.

No, PG is only part of the problem. That my memories are unconventional, that they tell the tale of a foolish girl drawn more to demons than to heights, that they include things of which the general populace only knows through episodes of TV dramas--that is the problem. That they are things more common in the private discussions of men and not generally admitted between the sexes is another. That I prefer to discuss these things openly, bawdily, yes, shockingly, is perhaps the most. There is only so much window-dressing one can use to discuss sex, only so many common experiences in drinking without devolving into lurid tales. Only so many ways one can listen to tales of youthful folly without lurching into one's own, turgid and odd though they be.

Sometimes, I think it might be better to forget. It's not as if I could legitimately publish these tales without suffering consequences to my personal life. If I tell them, if I write them, I will not censor them. This will cause me no end of personal grief, if anyone in my life reads them. There are tales you can tell without consequence, giddy little stories that bear no burden on their owner, that provide little but amusement to the hearer. I do not own these stories. They are not the tales I can tell, not honestly, at least, and I refuse to write dishonestly. I would rather not write.

So that's what I have done. I have not written, for fear of retribution. I have not committed anything to paper for fear of the consequences. I have a right to my fear--after all, it was partly on the basis of a particular written purging of emotion I was locked in a mental institution as a teen.

Perhaps, though, I can write them here. It isn't as if anyone will notice. It may be cathartic. It may lessen the ache of ennui and uselessness that clings to my chest. I haven't that much hope, but it might. I may begin my tales the next time I write.

Devil in a Blue Dress

Oprah has gained weight.

I'm letting you know because, apparently, this is a big news story.

She has gained so much weight, she is over 200 lbs. and does not know what she's going to wear to Obama's inaguration.

Aren't you concerned? Perhaps we should all write her letters of condolence...or support...or whatever. Because this is a big deal. This is something that all the major news networks are reporting. And as a suburban housewife, I feel it is my sworn duty to obsess over all things Oprah.

Okay, I'm not a housewife, and I hate Oprah. That's right--I said it. I hate Oprah. I hate her pomposity. I hate her self-satisfied smugness. I hate her insanely powerful sway over middle-class Americans. Let's be honest: over women. When did women in this country become such idiots? No, don't answer that.

I hate the prattle that she passes off for information, and I hate her projects: Dr. Phil especially. Good God, what a waste of flesh. Tell me, how can an obviously obese man have a top-selling diet book? Where does a twice-divorced man get off telling husbands and wives how they should comport themselves?

And how is it that middle-class America--good, God-fearing Bible-belt folks--give her a pass when it comes to her "living-in-sin" sugar-mama relationship with whats-his-face? Oh, that's right--she gave away some cars. Apparently, not only can America be bought, but it's pretty damn cheap.

An example of why I can't stand the woman? Certainly. I once saw a show of hers dedicated to honoring her charity work. Yes, it was a we love Oprah free-for-all. She chose several examples of her generosity for her loving audience to dote over. What were this evidences of her gregariousness? She saved a child from dying of cancer? Bought a house for a destitute woman with five children? Created a scholarship fund for deserving but poor young women? Contributed money to disease-fighting, hunger-fighting, poverty-fighting, whaling-fighting organizations?

Sadly, no. The fantastically benevolent acts she had committed with her immense wealth and power were:
1) she got a girl an internship (unpaid), and
2) she gave a fat girl a "Princess Day" (where the girl wore a tiara and got her nails done).

Ah, yes. All hail Oprah. Saving the world one facial at a time.

Sigh. The worst part is that it entered my day. It would be one thing if she and her drones kept to their own mindlessness, but no. What sadly passes for our news media these days is more interested in keeping us abreast of fluctuations in celebrity weight than in anything that happens in the rest of the world. I suppose if we keep our heads buried in our fashion magazines and TMZ.com, we won't have to worry about all of the problems in the world. Better yet, we won't feel obliged to do anything about them.

You know, though, I bet if it were really that important, Oprah would let us know what we needed to do.

Lost in the Supermarket

I find myself wishing I was 18 again. Not really 18, but have the body I had at 18, the prospects I had at 18, and none of the responsibilities that I now own. I wish I did not work for a massive corporation at a menial job that both bores me and is distasteful to me. I wish I did not live in a house in the suburbs, with a husband and 3 kids and 2 dogs, etc., etc. I wish I did not spend the bulk of my time performing housework--at which I fail to excel--and watching ridiculous nonsense on television in my rare moments of rest.

I am experiencing a typical mid-life crisis. Which, I suppose, is what bothers me the most.

You see, there is nothing remotely interesting in this. I am not even interested in this. It tugs at some invisible, deep pit in my bowels that this is the sum of my life. I am entirely ordinary. Even my despondancy is uninteresting in its utter lack of rarity.

As a child, you expect more, especially if you are precocious. People spend much time exalting your potential, encouraging you to reach it--for what? As our society tends to measure things, I am on top of the world. I have exceeded the 2.5 kids. I own my own home. I have a good job with great benefits. I have a brand new HDTV, a huge truck, a minivan. My children go to private schools. We live comfortably enough to travel, eat out, and keep the house a comfortable 74 degrees year-round.

Yet I'm bored. Bored and disappointed. I feel worthless, because I contribute nothing. I write manuals that aren't read for a company that is solely devoted to making money. I spend no time creating, contribute to few charities, and then only a pittance, and have no friends. I haven't time for friends. In 30 years, I shall perhaps die unnoticed except for my immediate family. They, too, will soon forget. They will only remember me out of long association and social expectations.

I am only one in a long line of people history will forget--history has forgotten. I am lost in the mundaneity of everyday life.

I want my verve back. I want the feeling of possibility that was mine as a teenager--the feeling that life was not a cage in which the bars loomed ever closer, but an open road. I want all the damn, stupid metaphors they promised me in song to be true.

Most of all, though, I want to be interested in something again.

So perhaps that's what this is. Perhaps this is a cry for help. Or, more likely, it will be a short-lived attempt at making myself feel better that I will abandon in a few days. We'll see.