“I get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine”
There comes a time in your life – if you have remained single past a certain age – when it becomes clear you have gone on being single for so long that there is no turning back. That you have officially become too weird to couple.
That time came for me at 3:15pm on Sunday December 3, 2006, when I thought this in all seriousness to myself: “I sure hope the monks enjoy my sing-a-long version of ‘Like a Virgin.'”
I stopped at that and really saw my life for the first time in a while. I saw my beautiful house that I am growing to love, with the silky yellow-green curtains billowing and fine threads of sandlewood incense burning and fairy lights strung up around all the doorways and flowers in various states of decay in jars. I saw the temple complex out my living room window, across a dusty concrete street.
I saw my new prized possession – a radio/cassette boombox that lights up with flashing red and yellow stars. And the small pile of tapes I’ve acquired: Britney Spears, ‘N Sync, and an 80s pop comp.
Just then there was a knock at the door. I switched off the music and opened the door to find Lee – who used to live in the house – stopping by to pick up some odds and ends he’d left in the back room. “Wow,” he laughed, “and then I heard the click and realized it was a tape. That’s something.” Yeah, something indeed. He walked in and looked around. “The house looks great,” he said. I thanked him, simultaneously noting how gracious it was of him not to mention the half-empty 40 sitting by the couch in the middle of the day.
When he left I pressed play again and flopped myself back down on the ‘couch’ (which is the Thai version of a couch, meaning a long flat cushion on the floor terminating in a triangular backrest) and wondered what the hell I’ve been doing the past 20 years because obviously none of it has had much of an impact on me. I mean, I drink a lot more than I did in 6th grade but otherwise…
To put it another way, am I going to be 55 and then possibly 75, and still be living in my own weird little world and dancing alone in my room to a Madonna cassette tape?
To be honest, all signs point to ‘yes.’
ps: 20 Baht cash prize to anyone who can place the above 80s song lyric without looking it up.
Tags: Nong Khai, Thailand
sandra_101
I can relate to this blog entry in a deep and profound way that is frightening, I think artists and writers relate to the world on a fantastic level that fails to intersect with the more boring real world. We live in our dreams and only endure our realities. We purposfully sabotage our actual world for the hollow pleasures of our sick and demented magical non-existant world…..or maybe that’s just me.
Maybe its a good thing?
see:À rebours (Huysmans)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_rebours
From that Chess production? Maybe “One night in Bangkok”?
Oh… too easy, Sandy… “One Night In Bangkok” from the musical CHESS.
Yep, I knew that too but I’m too late to be the winner anyway. And to answer your question (“To put it another way, am I going to be 55 and then possibly 75, and still be living in my own weird little world and dancing alone in my room to a Madonna cassette tape?”), I say definitively NO. You need a little vacation from your mind, girl. Lets check back on this in say, 1 year and then 5 and then 10 and we’ll see who gets to say, “I told you so!” I predict I’ll be the winner.