palm trees and drag queens
There was a solar eclipse this morning and I slept straight through it, dreaming bizarre dreams about suicide bombers inside cars, trying to blow up a pregnant woman that looked like Jodie Foster, with very modern-art like images and almost hallucinatory flowing strands of hair blowing in the wind.
I wrote this yesterday, while sitting in a spanish cafe.
= = = = =
Thinking about a november novel idea - what to write? something compelling, of course, something creative and unique. Tom suggested writing about "the pregnancy conviction" in a what if I were right kind of way. what would life have turned out like for a character in my situation? Itｴs a good idea, I think. I could also flesh out my modern dark techno-wizard theme from last year, which I quite liked and had abandoned prematurely I think. Perhaps a renga-writing nomadic type, or a story told through judicious use of a combination of dream-journal entries and letters to friends. email perhaps, although it feels cliche. Blog entries would be even more cliche, although I would have most of the book written already, wouldnｴt I?
I feel like Iｴm adressing some hypothetical future reader of this book, and the idea of you, dear reader, is enough to make me want to go all literary and launch into a long descriptive passage detailing the flies hovering around my pasta and smoked salmon salad, the way this morning was crisp and cool, with dark blue clouds encroaching on the mediterranean horizon. I want to tell you about the couples I saw emerging out of their saturday night into sunday morning, two men as triumphant as a preteen couple shyly holding hands on the street for the first time. Sitges is the gay capital of Spain, dontcha know? I would tell you about the round, expectant mothers on the beach and the leathery brown old ladies with their chihauhas, the dutiful husband carefully carrying a small plastic container of water for the dog. I could go on about drinking wine at dinner, and then again at lunchtime, about the two delicious cups of cafe con leche I drink every day and the gorgeous pastry that looks like a bagel but has almond paste inside.
Now I feel afraid that I would be boring you, my reader, and your presence is fading from my mind. I am hesitant to continue as I might start describing the state of my laundry, or how I might have to re-use my running socks tomorrow morning, and then instead of fading away peacefully you might show a slight expression of bored distaste, as I might have if I read something similar. So Iｴll not write about any of that.
Inner Critic: 1, Michelle: 0
Instead, Iｴll write about what I will henceforth refer to as "the pregnancy conviction". I have recently recovered from this unfortunate condition, and the experience was a genuinely traumatic one. Launching into a detailed account of my contraceptive history feels a little like writing about my already-used socks, but it is necessary to the story, so Iｴll try to be tasteful while I squash that inner critic. Consider the squeamish duly warned.
After being a fully ovulating and fertile member of womankind for a full six months, vanity and convenience prevailed and I started taking the pill again. And something at once remarkable and completely obvious happened: I started thinking I was pregnant. Now, at first this seems illogical - I was using a method of contraception with a success rate greater than 99%. The likelihood of getting pregnant while on the pill if you take it correctly is around 1 in 1000. But this past month I was TOTALLY CONVINCED that I was that one woman in a thousand that had gotten pregant. I had all the physical symptoms, even rather pronounced nausea and prophetic dreams. And when it turned out that I was not actually pregnant, I was as dissapointed as if I had suffered a miscarraige. Devastated, actually, weepy and totally irrational. When I thought about it, it made sense to my rational mind (or what was left of it) that I would think I was pregnant, because I had been taking hormones designed specifically to trick my body into thinking it was pregnant. And I ended up sucessfully tricking my mind as well.
That feeling of being tricked, betrayed by my body, but actually choosing to do all the betraying and tricking myself, was very, very difficult to reconcile. How could I be upset when I chose to put myself through that cycle of false conviction followed by crushing dissapointment, a willing participant in the deception of my own body and mind? Itｴs a real headwrecker. And later this week I plan on making the same choice again. Why? Convenience. Reliability. Vanity - my skin is improved more by the pill than any skin care product or cosmetic I have ever tried. I hate acne more than the emotional rollercoaster of synthetic hormones: I am a shallow woman. I donｴt expect sympathy, but if you find me weeping on the streetcorner in four weeks minus two days, youｴll know why. Iｴm mourning something that never had a chance to enter into being. But at least I wonｴt have spotty skin.
Inner Critic: 1, Michelle: 1
Now weｴre even.
these days, I'm spending my time with a few interesting characters who are taking up an increasing amount of real estate in my brain. one of them is an octopoidal monster. another is an aging hippie named Spring. there's also Isobel, a slightly naive reporter. and the most dastardly of the bunch is the mastermind behind the ultimate conspiracy, aka the Evil Genius. I've been letting them rattle and ramble around up there, bumping over the furniture and unearthing old dusty forgotten junk I thought I'd thrown away.