Today I went to Chuckie Cheese's, also known as a filming location for the live-action version of The Divine Comedy. We went to celebrate my nephew's birthday a second time, because obviously it's not a birthday if you're not being accosted by screaming children, heliocopter mothers, and pizza that gives you botulism.
*googles can pizza give you botulism*
All things considered, Chuckie Cheese's atmosphere was slightly less grating than I thought it would be. We spent an ungodly amount of money on invisible tokens so that my nephew could give his money to an oversized rat, but the kid had fun, so that was the important part. I've been feeling kind of out of sorts lately, so when my nephew turned to me and gave me a hug to thank me for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure we gave him, it felt like someone had poured milk on top of a second degree burn. Being that my nephew is four, he didn't realize this, and even if he had, Chuckie was much more interesting then his aunt's choke of emotion. He took my hand and begged me to 'find Chuckie' so that he could 'show Chuckie his Raphael figure', so being the dutiful aunt I am, I took his hand and led him to the front, where the poor soul in the Chuckie costume could tell my nephew that his Raphael doll was the fucking chuckles. Chuckie was entertaining a birthday party, and so I bent down to my nephew and told him in four year old language that we couldn't gate crash the kid's birthday party. My nephew is sickeningly cute (I know I'm biased, but the kid is really fucking kick your own ass adorable) and has very blue eyes, a rare trait in our family. At that moment, that beautiful blue eyed treasure of a child was giving me that I'm about to scream my fucking head off look that I am not equipped to deal with, being the maternally devoid aunt that I am. I wanted to tell him the truth. I wanted to tell him, sometimes the people you want to be around, can't be around, because they have obligations to other people. But a four year old doesn't care. A four year old wants to give high fives to Chuckie Cheese and doesn't give a fuck if it's someone else's birthday and cares even less about the de facts o' life. So I quickly diverted his attention to a blinking, screaming machine in the corner, and he forgot all about the guy in the costume and decided to spend the next five minutes yelling "HELLO CHUCKIE! I LOVE YOU! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" into an upside down phone. Ah, children. They are the future.
I spent the drive home headbanging and earned some what the fucking shitsnacks is she doing looks from my fellow road warriors, but there are some roads you have to headbang on, and that long stretch of i10 between Kenner and LaPlace is one of them.
I spent most of the weekend zapping the Turtle here and there. Ate a nice bit of dead cow on Friday, spent most of Saturday in Baton Rouge, got to roast like a duck at the pool, and spent that night in a near coma-state. I was supposed to go to Mechacon, but life interfered, and it sucked, because I really wanted to make questionable decisions, even though I swore to myself I'd quit drinking heavily in social situations. Drinking by myself at home is fine. I'm used to annoying myself. I just don't feel like annoying anyone else, and I hate waking up in the morning and cringing half the day because I feel like an idiot.
I was told that people asked about me at Mechacon, and that made my day. Hearing this prompted me to make a spur of the moment decision to form a girl's breakfast, so in a few weeks, everyone I know with a vagina is going to go and eat snobby breakfast and drink like we forgot how. Making this event and seeing how people responded to it gave me hope-maybe this psycho shit you've been feeling has just been in your head. Of course it's all been in my head. All of this 'feeling lost in my own life' shit has largely been me performing some kind of emotional autoerotic asphyxiation and projecting it on other people. You can only jerk yourself off while hanging so many times before you accidentally kick the chair from out under your own feet, and I came close a few times. Metaphorically speaking.
Right now it feels like my future is white. Blank. I'm afraid to write anything on it in Sharpie. I don't know how it's going to color itself; I'm afraid of any permanent marks that I can't erase. I'm going to focus on it every twenty four hours, and take it as it rolls out in front of me. When it gets complicated, I'm going to emulate my nephew and scream "HELLO CHUCKIE! I LOVE YOU! CAN YOU HEAR ME!?" in any direction I can.
Next weekend I hope to take my nephew to the pool so we can both roast together. The next, maybe the Myrtles Plantation with Lacey & Chelsea. Kind of want to see that stupid Meg movie to see if it's any stupider then the book, because the book was a royal fucking Creed opening for Nickelback at August in Champions Square kind of shitshow. I need a new cemetery. I need paper towels and laundry detergent. Chat is okay. I am okay.
I am okay.
I need
I need
I need
to quit shaking the chair underneath my feet and
just enjoy it, man.
Rae
Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way Reading into every word you say You said that you could let it go And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know
'Somebody That I Used to Know', Gotye