Stuff and things. Been spending some time with my new tarot cards, been making hemp necklaces. (Prince Harry, darkly: "DO NOT make one for me. I will not wear it.") Losing myself in strangers' eyes on the train. Drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee. A meeting with Sage to set deadlines for our book project; drank loads of wine at Saizeria and thought perhaps "You Had Me at Konnichiwa" is a title we wish to change ..... Bantered around some ideas, my personal favorite being "Kimochi" ("Feels so good") while Sage is partial to "Sen-yen" ("1000 yen"). Perhaps compromise with "Sen-yen Kimochi"? I like the ring to it, but as Sage said, "Hmmm, it's very Thailand ..." ;)
Monday Night Dinner Feast was neat: me, Sage, Jude the Obscure, SuperHiro, and Japhy. This is the first night all five of us were together in my kitchen since the night I first met SuperHiro and Japhy, over 8 months ago. At the time those two were just a couple of guys who were nice enough but didn't make a huge impression, although I liked that they both wore second-hand clothes and didn't shave; it's neat to see how the universe writes way different stories for you than the ones you would have expected.
Was thinking the other day about Life Paths and how so many people I know have embarked on the "university / wedding / new condo / baby / new car / another baby" mode. I don't mean to diss this lifestyle at all, and I particularly admire people who are capable of becoming parents, but the more I think about it the more I realize this is not the kind of thing I can participate in. When I was younger and living in Canada I half-assumed that I and my partner at the time would abruptly embrace Respectability some time in our early 30s and wind up with a little house by the ocean and a couple of kids and stable jobs; even though I assumed it, I had difficulty actually getting a mental picture of it in my head and as such it never felt wholly plausible. Seems even less so now. I don't think I'll ever be a homeowner or a middle-class type or a yuppie; I love Tokyo but I avoid the glitzier, more commercial places and look at my salary as nothing more than a means to pay bills/debt and buy food and books and the occasional plane ticket. That said, I have this weird interest in Family Life of late .... I blame reading Zadie Smith's "White Teeth," which has a lot of awesome dysfunctional family scenes under-cut with the most beautiful and complicated atmosphere of love you can imagine.
I was raised in what I don't consider to be the healthiest emotional environment, but one thing I can say about our Family Life is, well fuck, it was INTERESTING. We always made a point to eat dinner together every night, which is an awesome idea I think, and our conversations were fascinating ..... You had my little brother J. high as a kite explaining in detail his plans for building a time machine; me wondering aloud about the personal lives of my favorite dead communists; my mother, a master storyteller, spinning complete mini-narratives out of the scrap of mundane and surreal she had seen that day; my father deconstructing the nepotism and in-fighting he observed at the local chapter of his trade union. If my brother L. was there he always looked haunted, hunted -- if pressed, he would share his latest horrific experience with the Law; if my brother C. was there he would deliver exciting stories of life in the big city (Calgary) while quietly playing one family member's aggression off another's, resulting in fireworks that were appreciated by all. Lots of .... I don't know, conversation and life and PEOPLE. Today, 2009, my favorite room in my house is the kitchen, because that's where the housemates and our friends gather. So I guess if I ever DID decide to go the husband-and-kids route, it would be so all of us could go hang out in a kitchen somewhere.
But I don't want a fucking CAROL SHIELDS kind of domestic scene. God, I read one of her short story collections a few months ago and it depressed me so much, probably because it's the kind of life I would have ended up with if I'd stayed in Canada: comfortably middle-class, with a bland yet gentle white husband, a couple of kids with mild fuck-ups that we discuss with caustic humor over organic coffee in the breakfast nook; long ruminating walks on Saturdays as we try to figure out why we feel so empty, empty, empty, and then we go to the book club and feel better than everybody else because we pretend to appreciate post-post-post-feminist pseudo-autobiographical poetry collections.
I have an idea of the kind of set-up I want, but it's in the planning stages and I'm so prone to changing my mind that it would be pointless to write it here. But you know what's cool, is that lately I've been learning to not give a fuck about controlling all the things in my life and instead watch with interest at the way things unfold WITHOUT INTERFERENCE FROM ME, and it's kind of neat, kind of a break, almost as fun as watching a movie and not having to write a paper on it or anything after you're done.
Posted by joy at January 31, 2009 12:34 AM