Feed the Need

Some might say I have an instant gratification problem.

Working in a store where miles and miles of tasty edibles surround me at all times is really bad for my sense of proportion when in comes to control. I find most days I never actually eat a meal, instead picking at bites depending on whatever momentary food impulse I happen to feel. It's one of those places where I can say, "Hmm.. I feel like having a one bite of chicken covered in pancetta cream sauce followed by a single taste of raspberry nutella pastry. Rationally, I realize this isn't normal behavior, but from my perspective, it's become so totally commonplace that I have no other frame of reference. Consequently, because I am never eating much, I am eating almost all the time. Having the ability to bring all of this with me when I go home only makes matters worse. While it is most excellent that I haven't had to grocery shop in months, I also slightly ashamed to admit that there have been whole months that would pass without me ever feeling truly hungry.

Eating, it can generally be agreed upon, originated as a means for the consumption of nutrients. Hunger then was most likely a byproduct of a system set up to distribute fuel. Like a gauge on a car, a hunger pang is a warning sign that the body needs some more to run on. However, over time hunger has become more than a simple biological indicator, "hunger" may occur when the body is not really hungry. In fact, in my case, I find that the more consistently I am always "full" the more I am always generally "hungry" for tastes of the things surrounding me. This observation has me wondering what is the purpose of hunger, hunger for sustenance, hunger for love, hunger for achievement, in our lives? What even is "hunger" at all?

There's a strange condition I read about in an article a year or so ago that has amazed scientists and frightens the bejesus out of me. Apparently, somewhere in the Midwest there is a giantly obese child of 10. This poor girl, whose name I forget and we'll henceforth call Laura, has some strange genetic defect that doctors could not pinpoint for many years. Laura always seemed to want to eat voraciously, beyond what any normal person could reasonably want to consume and soon because morbidly overweight. No matter what diet her mother tried, Laura would protest starvation even after entire meals. Eventually Laura's mother took the child to see someone and through some sciency explanation I don't have the wherewithal to remember, the doctors finally realized that Laura seemed to be devoid of the trigger that senses "full." Laura in fact was no only devoid of the ability to fill up but in its absence was left with constant and overactive brain sensations of starvation. So imagine if you will having just eaten an entire Thanksgiving dinner, stuffing yourself to the brim, and still feeling as if you hadn't had a bite in weeks.

Once the child was old enough to semi-fend for herself, whenever not under a watchful parental eye, she would steal away to the kitchen and gorge herself on whatever she could get her hands on to try and satisfy her inner urges, to the point where she would be rushed to the hospital to pump her stomach before it quite literally exploded. The article explained how now her mother was forced to padlock the fridge so that her daughter did not eat herself to death. Just imagine having to steel yourself against the cries of your own child weeping for hunger while you have to refuse...

Shudder.

This sisyphusian stranger than life tale would be my own 7th circle of hell. The thought of a constant gnawing hunger that never fades strike terror in the the very depth of my soul. Recently, I have been trying to curb my current state of constant satiation with moderate success. I think that unlike Laura, whose hunger is a very literal one, I am trying to curb my own constant emotional hunger. I think that the fear of the hunger in a bizarre way feeds the need to constantly head it off at the pass. I have always hoarded in all areas of my life, the depression era mentality was instilled, who knows from where, at an early age. But paradoxically, when I actually allow myself to get hungry, I can feel the full in better proportion. As if it is only because one has viewed the height from a low that it can be truly appreciated. Perhaps this is why I anecdotally find that people who have not had, in moderation of course, can really enjoy all the things they now do have, again in moderation, with greater joy than those who have never had to do without.

It may be that hunger is a bit like ambition, while too much may become consuming to the point of obliteration of enjoying the things around you, and none at all may allow one to fall into the trap of lethargy, a little bit applied well can take you a long, long way.

I just called to say I'm Nordic

Someone on Montrose street is very very late.

At least, that's one conclusion I could draw from the fact that their alarm clock has been ringing non-stop for a week and a half. When I walk to work in the morning I pass a charming red brick building with tan awnings and from the outside on a relatively quiet street it is quite easy to make out the screetching of a clock radio keening to its owner to please, please, please! get out of bed already. I can sort of feel for the poor alarm, it simply wants a rest already, if they clearly aren't going to get up for whatever it was they set the reminder for, at least let the messenger off the hook. Empathic response or no, the alarm made me take in the building, something I never really bothered before to do. I found that this house interestingly stands of time from the rest on the street around it. While other more new-agey residents have painted their homes purples and greens, stuck metal sculptures of jumping mystical dragons on the front, stuck "Lick Bush and Dick in 04" bumper stickers in the windows, and replaced the old school address placards with wooden ones in the shape of prowling blue cats, this home is obstinately old fashioned, and contains sculptures of the Virgin Mary in the patio cement "lawn."

My own house is placed in an interesting cultural cross-section of the city. To the east lies the historic Italian Market where I work, now no longer full of Italians but more Hispanic and Vietnamese immigrant families who have moved to the area within the past 10 years and have started to set up shop in the market. Many of the Italians have moved to the south of me, along with some more affluent families that have created a community of older, restored houses. To the north and west lies center city, nesting den of the affluent and trendy. My block proper and the area west of me is mainly Black families. Directly across the street they are building a section 8 housing complex that resembles those awful developments out in the suburbs where each house is a cookie cutter of the one before and after it. Don't get me wrong, in theory its nicer than the ramshackle run-down structures you also see in the area, but they ring a little Stepford Wives for me to wholly embrace them. And I hate to think of all the old buildings with interesting architecture and history being torn down to make way for so much plastic. Suffice to say living on the borders of all these different areas of the city is interesting.

As is often the case in an area with a specific cultural slant, I feel somewhat of an outsider. Coming from the vagaries of white middle-class America, I often feel strangely disembodied in places that have a "community" in a way I never experienced growing up. I like the idea and have as I've written before come to my own versions of connection with the places I live and work in Philadelphia. Moving, however, often reinvigorates this feeling. One that apparently those watching me seem to pick up on. Once when coming home from an evening out, my dinnermate and I paused outside the door to say goodbye. Apparently we must have looked confused because a passing woman, who I have now come to recognize as a neighbor, asked if we were lost. I explained that, no in fact I lived in the house I was standing in front of.

"Oh...? Ok." she said with a vague confusion.

This story may be explained in part by an observation made by an elderly African-American gentleman who lives next door when my roommate and I moved in. He saw us con moving boxes et furniture and exclaimed that he was excited for us to join the block. He liked younger folk coming in and bringing their energy and thought we would also go a long way towards, "diversifying the neighborhood." There's a statement that goes on the list of things I haven't heard too often.

My building itself is situated neatly amidst of three Baptist churches. There are also within close proximity a series of a vaguely 1984-inspired phenomenon I call "Happy Black People Murals." The quotient of said pieces of public artwork generally tend, in my anecdotal experience, to indicate an inverse proportion of actual happy black community members one is likely to find in a given area. In one mural nearby a smiling man, who may or may not be the late great Dr. King (I'm not really sure, but if it isn't, the resemblance is quite striking), holds his linen-swaddled baby in a pose of promise and hope. The second boldly proclaims Merck's famous slogan "Don't Wait! Vaccinate!" and posits we enter a strange parallel universe in which everyone gets flu shots from each other and have necks and arms far out of proportion to the rest of their body. The last mural I can claim to enjoy in terms of color scheme but content-wise cannot comment on as I am unable to make it out due to the extreme about over graffiti covering it.

There are in fact Italian version of the same thing farther down 11th. In that area of town, where Pat's and Geno's reign supreme Louis Prima, Sinatra, and Lou Monte still stand, frozen in remembrances of days when they sang with the best of them. There are other greats of Italian culture but to be honest, a lot of them are pretty poor portraits and I have never bothered to read the signs. The strange thing about this is of course that the makeup of the neighborhoods these murals reside in are mostly Asian at this point. No though one it seems wants to, or at least is compelled enough to bother shattering the image of the of birthplace of Rocky Balboa.

There are times, especially when thrust into a new place or situation, when I feel like these studies in contrast mirror my own existence. These are the days when I want as much as possible to start establishing myself as distinct from the pre-formed group I have been placed into. Other times, I feel left behind but don't have the energy to change what already exists, or don't want to. And there are certainly days when reaching out to and relating to these groups is an effort monumental. It's easy to feel more comfortable with what we know, easy to stay put or simply go where we already know we have been, following the path of least resistance. But most times I am so grateful to have allowed myself the chance to be thrown into places I might not have known personally if I stayed shut off to new experience. Because, for example, on same trip to work where I have come to repeatedly encounter the alarm clock, I pass regularly one of the churches I spoke about earlier. In the window of that church stands my now very favorite sign in the city:




Even God it would appear is in a hurry.

Bitch and moan

Do you ever have those creative days where it's really hard to put together a thesis statement?

This is one of those days. I don't know if it's the muggy, rainy heat or what but I am feeling seriously out of focus at the moment. This afternoon after I got off of work I put on a movie and proceeded to play computer solitaire for over an hour. Somehow it felt justified because I made it to the post office to mail a package and got myself a new pair of pants. I mean, my other pants are seriously falling apart so it was time. But still, not exactly earth shattering events here.

I think that afternoons have become a strange time in the land of Adrienne. This is due to the fact that my existence has become inverted to what the normal person might experience. Generally, I am work by 6:30 or 7am in the morning. I tend to get off in the middle of the day and then have several hours in which I have little or nothing to do. Then, around dinner time I go to a performance, either mine or someone else's and generally go out afterwards. Then I get up and do it again.

Which means my day is very long. Actually, now that I look at things, perhaps my afternoon "listlessness" is really just sleep deprivation. Truth be told most nights when I get home, though physically tired I still need to mentally unwind a little. Which means of course more computer solitaire. I've been trying to always make sure I've got music ideas for my upcoming show playing so that I can rationalize the time as "unstructured creative meandering." It's surprising really how little sleep one can start to function on and still feel normal.

The only real sign that something is amiss in the corps d'adrienne is that small aspects of my body have started to rebel. My stomach for one, has decided to play this game wherein it reacts violently to dairy and caffeine. Which for a person who works at coffee and cheese stores is a really unfortunate circumstance. Today I actually made myself a diet, decaf iced pumpkin spice latte. With Soy. Is it wrong that a large part of me feels like a bad person?

Meat is a little iffy at the moment as well so I've resigned myself into a semi-vegan diet the past couple of days. When I break in moments of weakness I am rewarded with searing stabs throughout the abdominal region. I'd like people to note that it really is related to the food, I feel fine otherwise and generally receive aftershocks within a half hour of transgression. Just in case you were worried about some more serious issue... as if my inability to consume the delight that is milk-product isn't serious enough. It as though a moral deity from above wants me to be punished for the ills perpetrated on animals. This from the girl who used to be known as "The Iron Stomach." Oh how the mighty have fallen.

My face has also decided to explode and more recently taken my back along with it. This development is disturbing most especially as I never had bad skin in high school. I fell asleep countless times in heavy grease paint that marinated my skin until I showered in the morning. I used "regular" old soap, it was just never an issue. Now I have no idea what to do about the spectacular battle being waged upon me. I know, I know, boo fucking hoo from those of you who had to deal with this during the most turbulent years of one's life, but at least then most people where in the same boat. I'm stuck with teenager problems in the middle of my twenties.

Other than that the only other real exciting addition to myself has been an enormous number of mosquito bites. They are terribly impressive in both size and number. And man oh man are they good to scratch. I know I shouldn't but it is a sin that is so terribly sweet to carry out. The screen on my window fell into the backyard of another apartment and until I get a new one, every night I become a veritable feast for my buzzing friends, prone, unmoving, and full of blood being that I am while sleeping.

Whiney-pants Adrienne today. Did I mention I'm having a hard time coming up with a topic to post about today? Tough life...

Absalom, Schmabsalom! Let's work the whole thing out...

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling 'Kilroy was here' on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass."

- William Faulkner

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

- Ernest Hemingway

Nobel Prize pissing contest anyone?

Faulkner: I'm clearly raised to a higher level of intellectual prowess. This is apparent because in my pictures I'm perusing over a volume of great literature.
Hemingway: No way pansy-pants. I'm smarter because in my picture I'm actually writing a book.
Faulkner: How do I know that's actually a novel? From this vantage point it would appear to be simply a voluminous pad of paper. Let me see that... Ernest, all you've written on here is 'My big fish is bigger than your big fish!' over and over again.
Hemingway: Yeah, well, how... how do I know you're even reading that book?
Faulkner: Don't be an imbecile, Hemingway.
Hemingway: Oh big words Willy! Well you know what? Your tie is stupid.

Do you like the first scene of my new play? It's sort of Copenhagen but set in America and more geared towards literature than theoretical physics. I think that it's going to be a big hit.

Actually, I don't really have much to say about either Faulkner or Hemingway. I haven't read more than was required for my Great American Writers class in high school and to tell the truth I wasn't that big a fan of Old Man and the Sea or As I Lay Dying. No, what interests me more is the polemic between people that I have illustrated so eloquently above. You can divide the world a lot of different ways but one of them seems to be along the lines of people who prefer to complicate matters and those who'd rather leave things simple.

You know the complicators, they have to overdo and add on to every idea. Nothing is ever really complete and there's always one last extra touch to throw in. They want to pile on as much stuff as they can so that those around them get lost in the maze of complexity. In life they over analyze and criticize and tend to be rather unable to let sleeping dogs lie. And then there are the simplifyers. The people who don't own furniture. The ones who try to pair down their schedules to the basic necessities. The people who just go with the flow and don't try to fix it if it ain't broke.

I'm not going to bother elaborating too much more on the qualities of each type of person, I think that most of my readers are quick enough to sort out the differences and which area they and their near and dear fall into. I think that I've resigned myself to being a complicator, I own too many kitchen appliances to ever qualify as a simplifyer. But let me note that I'm a complicator who longs for the simple life.

But the longing and the path to actualization are two very different things.

Does anyone else ever find themselves explaining a concept to another person and at some point realizing they've probably got what you're talking about. However, you haven't really completed the thought that you started and thus you continue talking for another paragraph or two just for completeness sake? Maybe you too find that sometimes your thoughts run so far ahead of your speech that you actually start tripping over or even combining words as you talk in an effort to get them all out as quickly as possible... Or maybe you reader also have the unfortunate inclination I find myself guilty of in which you start telling a rather simple story and in the process realize there is another tangent story whose information could marginally improve the understanding of the first. Meaning that you must now veer off into a second story set simply to get back to the original. And maybe if you're really lucky you'll start a third story in parentheses to the first two so that the listener really has the full context of the tale... Of course half the time I forget the original narrative line, so busy have I been interrupting myself with other ones. Lest you need an example, simply scroll down to my last post. I started telling about one dream and managed a whole section about another one in great detail just to point out a contrast.

But I digress.

I've been reading a lot of Khalil Gibran lately as I prepare to embark on a directing project surrounding his work. From what I've read via biographies and what have you's, Gibran was the epitome of the complicator. His life was a laundry list of obsessions and neuroses over the events he took part in. He'd write and re-write works, nit-pick them and fly into rages over imperfections. He wrote copious amounts of letters, the shear volume of which is staggering, far outweighing the body of his "legitimate" work most of which centered around his constant struggle over and over to do things "right". And yet, despite his high flown phrases and lyrical poems, Gibran's work consistently centered around the theme of simplicity. His characters always were working to reach his ideal of the innocent, child-like and naive state of mind. Many of my favorite theater makers: Mnouchkine, Taymor, Zimmerman, are women who's lives, one can attempt to guess at, are filled with all the complication and obsession with detail that Type-A people seem to carry around. And yet interestingly these are the people who voice a consistent commitment to return to the simplicity and ritual nature of the art of theater. I like the inherent paradox in this. As if, in some way, we seek that which we are not. Heck, half the time even Faulkner was using his "ten-dollar words" to try and convincingly get in the mind of characters with a Forrest Gump IQ.

I think perhaps it's the very search for the opposite ideal of what one embodies that makes the effort of it all worth it. Is there a similar drive on the opposite side of life? Are those simplified people sitting around in their vaguely zen-like glow wishing and wondering how they can create a little more adversity and drama in their lives? It's possible. Perhaps one really needs a slightly unattainable goal. It just might be that we require something other than what we are to aspire to. Because the wishing is what keeps us going, motivates us beyond what we are and know.

I'm happy to let Faulkner keep his expensive words. And Hemingway, sure, I'll grant you that sometimes older and simpler is better. Pretension is, well, pretentious. But just remember, ten dollar words get you the Nobel Literature Prize first.

Sleepscape

I had the weirdest dream last night.

I haven't sat down to write about it until now and so a lot of the details in it have been lost into that strange between awake and dreaming land that seems to soak up particulars, generally leaving only vague remembrances of feelings from my nighttime adventures. At least, that's how it is with me.

In any event, this dream was sort of strange in its banal action. Strange because despite being a relatively average dream it has left me in a strange state of philosophical pondering. Maybe that's the idea. Before we proceed here's the general idea:

The dream starts in a restaurant of sorts. It's pretty vague but I get the sense I've just eaten a meal, or at the very least I feel, if not full, satisfied. I realize that I've just agreed to get married to someone. I stop to think about this and register a sensation that is again, if not overjoyed, certainly contended about the decision. I have a vague sense of my betrothed towards the positive but, and this is generally true throughout the dream, I don't really have any specific idea about him other than that. It's one of those strange dream paradoxes in which I at the same time feel as though I have a very specific and real relationship to them but also have no actual memory of their company throughout the wedding process.

So long story short, suddenly, I am married and sitting in a room at the reception. Things have gone well and I am content and surrounded by family and friends. We are eating, chatting and warmly congratulating me on my nuptials. The guy of course is coincidentally absent from the scene but I get the general sense he'll be back in a bit. The people I am with by contrast are all very real and very specific. They are a strange gathering of those that I know, some friends, some grade school acquaintances, teachers and an ex boyfriend with whom I no longer speak. Strangely, we're all quite at ease with each other, bantering back and forth and talking about the future and past.

I realize in a sort of off-hand way that I've forgotten to invite my parents to this event. In the dream it wasn't a malicious action, I just genuinely got caught up in festivities and planning. There was simply so much to do that I just plum forgot. As I mull this over I realize that I will probably be chastised heavily by my mother for her lack of inclusion. I wonder if there is a way to re-perform the wedding without her realizing what has happened. Then I remember that she has in fact never met my husband. In fact, as I look around the room, I note that few of the people sitting, all of whom I know and feel deeply about, have any connection to my husband at all. None of his party seem to have made it to the wedding.

I stop for a moment and sit back while the crowd drones on. I am a little unnerved by this fact. Here is a person I have brought into my life forever and I don't have much idea about him myself. And as I muse I realize that despite his disconnectedness to my life, I know I like him enough. I know that things will be fine enough. I know that I have made a good enough choice and that it will have to do. And I'm pretty much ok with that.

Soon after I rejoin the group, man still conspicuously absent, I am asked by a mentor with whom I still keep in contact how I feel. I answer truthfully that I'm relieved mostly, happy to be married and ready to embark on this new chapter in my life. A friend, Brad (the one who bought me my throwing knives I remember) asks me about the guy, what made me choose him after being so judicious for so long. My reply?

"It was time."

And that's when I woke up. It's important to note a general issue of tone. This dream unlike other dreams I've had that revolved around similar themes wasn't romantic and giggly the way a lighter comedy portrays such an event. I've had those romantic themed dreams and the ones I remember are some of my favorites. There's one in which it's night and I'm riding in the back of a car with my high school crush Alan Lewis (he played Jesus in Godspell, be still my beating heart) and we are both looking ahead at the road. I don't have any idea who's driving the car, but it doesn't really make a difference and for our purposes they are only vaguely paying attention to us in the back, enough so that we must be quiet and not betray our feelings overtly, but distant enough that they aren't watching like a hawk. In any event we are sitting in a comfortable silence listening to the sounds of the nighttime road around us and at some point Alan reaches over and gently takes my hand in his. We sit, still silent, and continue riding. Riding and holding hands. It is the most intense romantic sensation I've ever felt.

All of the above is inserted to illustrate a contrast. In that dream the most simple boring of acts is transformed into the most life altering of emotions. On the other hand, in my dream from last night, under the most extreme of romancey situations I wasn't picking out dresses and cakes and I didn't imagine bridesmaids and party plans. I wasn't daydreaming about the exciting particulars of the event and reveling in the "nowness" of what I was doing. I can't even form a mental picture of the groom. The event really felt as though it was happening around me and I was simply a passive, if willing, participant. This idea of it "being time" really rang true throughout. The timing for what was happening to me was simply right and I accepted it as such.

Rarely in actual life do we get pure emotions. Unadulterated sad, uncomplicated joy, unsullied rage are in their own way very precious. They are usually doled out with care and precision. In fact, their sustained presence seems to wear them away. They're nice, if intense, precisely because they tend to narrow the focus of life down to a pinpoint, a small peephole. And with most extremes, it takes a lot of effort to stay balanced on that pinprick. We usually slide back down at some point or another. And so in dreaming I often find I get a chance to live in those extremes both good and bad for a little while and take that feeling out into the world with me the next morning and use it to gain a little perspective on the life that surrounds me.

Life recently though has been a bit hectic. I've been busy (no posting excuse) with work and a performance that I'm managing and 6:30am to 9:30pm work days have become somewhat of a regular occurrence. It seems I've been running myself ragged enough to jolt a lot of feelings into high gear. And so it would seem that my subconscious decided it needed a bit of a break. Hence the, it's going to work out, nevermind the particulars, attitude. And I can appreciate that sensibility. Despite its lack of passion I actually woke up from this dream with a great sense of relief and calm. How nice it would be to have that whole marriage chapter started, at least know who I was going to be tackling those big life problems with, gear myself up, strategize now that I know who my teammate is. In the dream I breathed a big sigh of relief with the thought of, "Yeah. It's done. It may not be perfect but here it is."

For all the calm inducing bliss though, I'm glad to let my dream stay hidden in my brain. Glad, however much more nerve wracking the current situation may be, to still have a lot of things left unresolved. I'm sure that relief will return when I finally synch the waking state with my nightvisions and it's good to get a sense of how much one can adapt to their life however it may pan out. Right now though, I'm happier to live a little closer to the extreme, dare I say walk a little farther along the path of my aspirations, aka my waking dreams, and let my sleeping self reign me back in for fear of the emotion-inducing consequences.