White Noise

Wake up at 3 am, thirsty, disoriented..Take a look at your phone, nasty habit..In your drowsy state, foolishly decide to answer that blinking message..Believe you are capable of summoning reason, that water will magically reinstate your mental abilities..

Using Facebook as a notepad is my new level of lazy; I’ve been breaking record times on social media lately in fact. I clicked the one thousand’s like on some random post from a random publisher on the site a couple of weeks ago, and it sincerely felt like the highlight of that night for me. 

Aside from procrastination, I have recently found a sudden interest in superheroes and fairy tales. When series, movies and books started failing to fill those humongous voids in me, I turned back to the oldest trick in the book, daydreaming. 

Daydreaming isn’t an easy task when charming princes and farfetched fortunes stop being fulfilling. Beyond that point, daydreaming becomes an art in its own, it starts requiring chunks of imagination sprinkled with intellect and a shy sense of adventure. It’s hard to break free from clichés in this field. It takes absolute, irrefutable boredom to push yourself in the direction of making art out of what you’d always taken for granted. Suddenly you start focusing on your imaginary expedition and before you know it, you realize it has taken a life of its own; it needs to be nourished now. 

But what is art’s worth without a muse? And what’s the definition of a muse if not a torturous creature voluntarily subjecting you to mind games and psychological disconcertion? A muse has swag but does not realize it. It knows it has got something over you, but is unable to label it, for if you knew what swag is, then you probably don’t have it. 

Usually, the fact that someone is interesting doesn’t automatically make me interested. But in some rare cases, you may be the most boring or neutral person to the rest of humanity, but to me you’d be the incarnation of some sort of cerebral heaven hemorrhaging intellectual stimuli and heartbreaking inducements.

Am I too lyrical tonight? It’s the muse effect. 

One of daydreaming’s many side effects includes an obsession with finding the best way to manufacture heels for mermaids, because yes, there are many, many ways to do it. It also starts seeping into your regular dreams, the kind you involuntarily have while sleeping. Combining your newfound daydreaming habit with an insatiable taste for independent movies might also increase your chances of having nightmares versus pleasant dreams, well unless you don’t consider the fact that you had deprived children of available noses when they needed them in your dreams as vicious. 

Stop by the grocery store on your way home..Get basil, you need to fix yourself a cocktail as soon as you step into your place..Pick an energy drink on your way out from the fridge next to the register..It’s raining..Stand under the rain, sipping a Red Bull, and decide to revisit the nonsense you had typed at 3 am last night..Cheese, all of it, cheese..

I started counting on my new hobby to get me through the days. It felt like an automatic approach to compensate for the infuriating way my soul is being eaten every day. It felt right to let the daydreaming take over while I, little by little, lost my ability to defend the remains of my worn-out soul. 

Creative daydreaming can only last for so long though. When the candlelight flickering on top of your muse’s head gets blown out by unexpected winds, you start giving up on the very lifeboat you’d began to rely on to save you from the oblivion of giving up in the first place. 

The best way to save face is to explain how your senses were clouded by midnight thirst..That’s what your silly mind, fuelled by the flying effect of energy drinks tells you at least..Trust your contaminated instincts and type..

It’s about time you acknowledged your defeat. You are just as boring and pathetic as they come. Temporary brilliant solutions or none, you have failed in the end. 

Cheese..More cheese..Who are you really? No really! 

Go home, resigned..laugh your daydreaming out..Build an imaginary shrine of the muse in your head..Decide that the best fashion to drown your sorrow is older than the oldest trick..Make cocktails, you’re becoming good at those at least..

*Author’s note: this dismantled, devoid of any - and I mean any - sense or purpose, is brought to you tonight by Jack Daniels, DeKuyper and Davidoff.

The Power of Time

While making my regular FB tour tonight, I was struck by a famous Buddha quote which read: “The trouble is, you think you have time.” I sat there contemplating the sentence for what seemed forever, and then I realized I better stop staring and move on to something else before time with its mighty wings dares steal even more precious moments while I keep going unaware of its effects and its boldness.  

The concept of time has been consuming me for 3 days now, and I feel the need to virtually arrange my thoughts on paper in hope of settling an already busy mind. It all started when I discovered a white hair in my eyebrow while fixing my makeup in the car. I froze for an eternity before I started the engine and went straight to my beautician to pluck it out.

I had never been aware of how scary it would be for me to start the aging process. Sure I have always joked about it, but not once - I am now aware - have I truly gave it a sincere thought. Somehow I had never believed that I would ever grow old, or older. I had always had the sense that one way or another, my life would be over by the time I was thirty. And with thirty so close now, a lot downed on me in a single moment.

The sense of being underachieved could be tragically thrown out of proportion when you spot your first white hair. The feeling that you have done way too little in contrast with your potential sets in, and a whole lot of drama starts buzzing in your head, robbing you a bit more of what little sanity you were still trying to maintain.  

I sit here thinking of whys and what ifs. I sit with remorse, with regrets. I feel threatened by missed opportunities and lack of effort. And as one thought gets chained to the other, I start seeing lack of ambition, lack of spirit and serious lack of motivation in my past, and sadly, in my present as well. Melancholic dilemmas start clouding me and a morose state takes over my being. Have I ever really tried achieving a goal or fulfilling a dream? Have I ever given anything my all? Have I ever compromised enough or have I ever, to the contrary, refused to compromise? Have I been passionate, in the true sense of the word, about something in my life so far? The answer saddens me even more, it empties me of any sympathy I still had for myself. Had I ever been sincerely passionate and truly determined, I wouldn’t be lamenting myself now.

Tonight I pray for the ability to use the fleeting gift of time more wisely. I pray for greater determination and second chances. I pray for patience and opportunity. I pray for knowledge and feasibility. I pray for inspiration and enthusiasm. For hope and faith. For strength and drive. For passion, most of all, because love is nothing without it, and what a shame it would be to waste love.

Tonight I strive to read more and procrastinate less. I strive to do more and talk less. To produce more while nagging less. To appreciate what I already have. To cherish what I have already achieved. To be thankful for the people already surrounding me. For without gratefulness to what I am lucky to have now, I don’t deserve what I may accomplish in the future and will never know how to enjoy it.    

At The Mercy of My Fingers

I know you are going to say this is just too much! We have better things to do than reading a blogger’s jabbering every other night! But I can’t help it, my fingers just won’t rest, they refuse to stay away from the keyboard. I have tried, I swear I did. I must have clicked on those stupid solitaire cards over twelve thousand times tonight, and yet my fingers don’t seem to have had their satiety. My pink little mouse that looks as if it is a hand-me-down from an 8 year old girly girl has been begging me to stop restlessly clicking on it for over 2 hours, and yet my fingers refuse to keep away from my broken laptop.

Something in me has woken up from its deep, long slumber this week. Something in me has shaken me up, and like a somnambulist, I found myself picking up on my reading where I had left off. The pleasure of those books must have ticked off the ink swelling in the tips of my fingers.

Something in me has realized that fantasies are just what they are, and reality must set in sometime. My feelings about this statement are ambivalent. I am not sure how much I prefer living my reality as opposed to dreaming my fancy.

I am trying to take serious steps towards fulfilling the promise I had made to myself, the one in which I swore to live more, to do more, to be more; but as the saying goes, one hand cannot clap on its own, and without a serious entourage and excellent company round the clock, I am afraid my hands not only won’t clap, they are also tied, tied to a bittersweet reality that keeps me going in vicious circles of fabulous far away friends, and omnipresent insignificant everyday companions who make me feel like a cat lady.

Tonight I can’t help but imagining myself some 30 years from now still sitting in this chair, sipping from this same hideous cup of coffee, only by then I would be ordering decaf instead; I foresee uncontrollably shaky hands in my future and a pile of heart medicine. I see glasses so thick they seriously could pass as the bottoms of coca cola bottles. I see a big house filled to its brim with books read once and only once, with rusty yellowish notebooks scattered all over the place, and with little, almost invisible insects crawling and making tiny nests inside the walls of an imagination that never knew where its door knob was.

I see neighborhood kids practicing their prank skills on me. I see myself tutoring students I wish I could spank to make a living.

I see nephews and nieces coming to check on me every once in a while. I hear them complaining about the stench of the house. I see myself cracking the windows once they have left. I see myself trying to look presentable and driving my 2005 Polo – 30 years from now – to Sassine Square. I see young waitresses puffing and rolling their eyes at my sight.

I sit here seriously wishing I knew how to change this inevitable prospect, and whilst my imagination aids me, my reality refuses to cope. Somehow I wish the world would rearrange itself to suit my lazy ass. And to end this with a somewhat less pessimistic thought, just wait and watch it do it!