cynical - E

sometimes, i wonder what people think of themselves. the way i see myself moving through the world, the performance from my view is probably nothing like what everyone else sees. does this chick see herself as a humanitarian? does that guy really think he's all that funny? are people really that naive? no, i figure they're not oblivious-- there's always a keen eye for the faults of others, cracks in the character, missed lines. how can people have such a blind spot for the self, i wonder?

like this guy, Andy. he's got a cocked eye and a cocked face, like he's never entirely done smirking. like he knows some secret about you, or the nearest person, or the world but he won't talk about it. he sits across from me now, his peanut of a head taking the ballroom of the elk's lodge in at a forty-five degree angle, wearing a short-sleeved yellow dress shirt and khakis. they still have the creases from where they sat on store shelves this morning. he sits just a little too close, hunching forward on a metal folding chair with an elbow on the table between us. his breath is cheap champagne. i use my merlot as a sort of shield, an excuse to pull my body back a little from him while i sip it. he's talking between my nods and uh-huhs, and he's telling me about his job, and he's telling me about his friend who works for some video game company, and how he was kicked out of his university. we met once, six or seven years ago when i was a young teenager. he was grabbing for power in a tabletop roleplaying game, and my older brother was letting me watch.

one big power grab, is the vibe i get from this guy. making his life out to be one big struggle for him to reach the top. i'm his captive audience. i wish i'd not been polite, not said "hello" the fifth time he hovered past my table glancing sideways at me, i wish i'd not recognized him at all, but hey, i've got a thing for faces and names and being polite and all we can do is be ourselves right? right. and it's my brother's wedding, and the less awkward things are for everyone, the better the whole affair is. so i make nice.

and that cocked eye of his, that hunched posture, it makes him look like igor. the only thing i can think of is asking him to fetch another body for my next experiment. i don't ask him this, of course. i just repeat the last thing he said like i understand, or care. but i think of it, of him as igor. i think, given the opportunity, he would make friends with the publisher who published the story of frankenstein, and suggest some changes, and before you'd know it we'd have mary shelley's "Igor", the tale of a man whose genius was overlooked for someone less talented but more genial, the story of a guy who overcame and rose to the top in spite of being disliked and unsightly.

and i think to myself that maybe i'm being too harsh about this judgment.

"oh? so you said you were his friend, and then...ahh, they just had you skip that interview then? mm."

we share a laugh about it. it's good to know people in high places, he says.

a power grab. a climber. going places, he feels. does he know what he sounds like? do other people know what he sounds like? the next thing to come to mind is the word "deluded". i wonder if everyone thinks of themselves as something more than they actually are. i wonder how many of us wear these puffed-up caricatures of ourselves to be validated by others. i wonder how many of us are actors-- i wonder how many of us who don't think of ourselves as actors are acting more than we realize.

i wonder if critics get a bye on this sort of thing.

i excuse myself for a second glass of merlot.

how elle got her groove back - E

it stares me down with that enormous glassy eye. i know it can sense my fear, perhaps smell and taste it in the air-- there's plenty of it to be detected, after all. it pierces my soul, pins me where i stand with that volcanic glass jettatura. from somewhere deep in my brain, echoing from some ancient part of it we had when we weren't human, a primal, haunting, chilling instinct grips me. as cold and dark as the depths of the ocean womb, it engulfs me, pervasive and paralyzing. "it hungers."


alt title: i actually took the time to post this on facebook about someone's gargantuan pet rabbit and felt bad about not being a productive blogger. - G