I am ignoring my responsibilities this week because I can't really handle the idea of them, much less tackling them. Far from feeling ineffectual, I've been writing more of what I want to write. It's liberating. But I know I'll regret it later.
But.
I am also at the end of my rope with this gallery. Suddenly it's like the epicenter of f-ing midtown. I have had a bowl of ramen here (awesomely delicious Korean ramen from the place across the street) for an hour and a half and I'm about halfway through it, and I've been trying to watch a 3-minute video on YouTube for about the same amount of time. I've gotten 30 seconds in. Because every time I put the phone down some moron walks in and stares at me so I can't be stuffing my mouth with noodles. And when that person passes, the phone rings again, and when I put it down it rings again, and when I put THAT down, the same moron is back at the desk asking some inane question, and then when the moron walks away again, another moron comes in, and then someone from the back office comes walking past and because I can hear them before I can see them, anytime someone from the back office approaches I have to assume it's a Big Boss, which means, again, that I can't be stuffing my face with noodles. It's like a three-ring goddamn circus in here.
I should be happy because the busy-ness means that we're selling art, which means that my job is secure and that the Big Bosses are in better moods than usual (seriously, yesterday TKR offered me cookies [which I refused because I hate her; when I said no thanks, she looked taken aback--haha, take THAT you scum!] and today Mr. Levai told me he was 'excellent' when I asked how he was doing). But the truth is, I don't give a CRAP about the gallery's sales, and I have a horrendous splitting headache that won't go away. I like it when it's really, really quiet and nobody is buying anything, because then I can eat my lunch in less than two hours and get some work done, if I want.
Hm.
But I was going somewhere with this.
Writing....
Hm.
Oh well, it's gone.
/rant

Skinny Puppy: or, my anger management issues

I want to be there in the thick of it, protecting, holding fast against what might hurt her. I want to be bashing in skulls. I'm always like that. At concerts I jump into mosh pits and get beaten down unless I'm held back by someone bigger, wiser, less prone to starting fights. There's this thing in me, some kind of tribal being with no regard for personal safety or the convention of nonviolence. Sometimes people deserve to be kicked in the face. And I can kick pretty high. I kicked someone in the head once, after ample warning, and he was still shocked.
And yet, there are always cops around, watching. Or crowds with their disapproving glares. Or reasonable folks standing nearby, talking me back from ripping off my shirt and plunging in--reminding me I am not really the Incredible Hulk. I am Lynsey. I am small and weak.
I remind them that I've got the crazy in me. My temper flares are like sunspots. They can cause all kinds of problems.
But, yes, I can hurt too. And I do, when I watch the melee going on around me, when I stand on the sidelines and watch and tremble with this fury that seems born into me. Instead I smash things, non-living things, and when I was young I learned to imagine that alarm clocks and mirrors had feelings, like all of my toys. Not so I could talk to them or feel like I had companions, but so that when I broke them, I would feel more triumphant. "Just punch your pillow," said friends when I told them my rage had gotten me in trouble again, when I broke the sliding glass door. "But pillows never seem like they feel it," I'd answer. "They bounce right back."
I wanted to jump into the fray last night, pound my fists into you and watch you reel back. Rip off these damn chains and unleash the fury of my purple pants. Dance like the devil was in me.
But I remembered, thank god, that no one was holding me back this time. That guy with the meathead might really pummel me. I held myself back.
Or, maybe I'm just old and lazy.

Lord, I was Born a Ramblin' Man: or, androgynous, confused self-reflection

Some days, when the time drags by slowly with busywork, as I watch my hours of productivity fall away unused, a sadness begins to steal in around noon. Quietly, pad-footed, cat-burgling my energy in slow steps, until sometime in the mid-afternoon I look up and realize my heart is wide open. I want to turn on slow songs, quiet songs, about honey and childhood and remorse, and stare quietly at falling rain and think about candles dripping. I feel tenderized, as if someone had beaten me with one of those big wood meat pounder things with the blunt spikes, as if the smallest prick of emotion aimed my direction could stab a fork in me. I see flashes of all the beautiful eyes I've known in my life, the big, wide brown ones and the long-lashed hazels and the occasional stunning blues. I feel heartache coming on, a rip working its way up from my stomach along the very back of my trachea and expanding every time I shift in my chair. I want be very, very still, let myself feel the waves of nostalgia and yearning and mystery of where I am now. I feel tricklings inside, as of raindrops on a window pane but perhaps it's just the pane of me, being as transparent as ever. The past few weeks have been emotional but mostly for other people--I'm just on the periphery watching the action. But the contact with intense feeling has brought about my weakness to the seduction of abandonment to those whims. To feel so deeply, to lose myself in the blackness of it, the shutting down of thoughts, to weep or to scream or to swoon... It's been a long time. And I miss it. Adulthood sucks out those wild moments and replaces them with routine, comfort, calculation, practical considerations and those occasional breakthroughs of sordid passion through the mud-caked armor... They are real and close and loud, and we shut them out, shut them down, shut ourselves away. But I've gotten a taste and I'm fiending for more.
I suppose it's just a matter of an empty day. Not a quiet one or an easy one, but one during which my brain has had little to do but sit still with itself and let its thoughts roam inward. But here I sit amidst the bustle of the gallery, with my heart pulsing for everyone to see, just hoping someone will notice and break it.