Of the hundreds of images that flooded my dreams last night, the only one I can clearly recall is the moment when I ate magnetic chocolate peanut-butter cups. I was conveniently standing next to a refrigerator when I was told about their special properties, and sure enough, they stuck. As I ate them, I expected to reach a hard magnetic center, or at least encounter some odd taste, but the candy was uniformly delicious, and in the back of my mind, I wondered if I should be concerned about its ultimate effects on my health.

Now I could formulate a theory (and hey, I think I will!) that the mysterious magnetic candy was a metaphor for attraction -- sweet, tantalizing, mystifying, and infused with an undercurrent of danger. Giving into the temptation is surprisingly easy, while we are baffled and even mildly disturbed by its strange powers. I took that candy with little hesitation, but as I enjoyed it, I questioned the consequences. I knew I should be afraid of what it could do to me, but it wasn't enough to stop me from partaking. And I think about how desire is offered up like this, often all the more alluring for the risk involved. What if that tasty treat ultimately sickens or destroys us? But swallowing that candy-coated poison seems to imbue us with a strange power of our own, and maybe that's why, as we ache with that cold lump of doubt in our guts, as that foreign substance creeps ominously through our veins, we don't really mind, because maybe, as we succumb, we become magnetic, too.

Just so long as I don't end up attached to a major appliance...

Tallulah

I have this wound I can't quit picking at. I threw a band-aid on it months ago, thinking maybe if I just left it alone, it might go away. But a couple weeks ago, I got an itch - I couldn't help myself, I had to peel back the bandage and take a look. It was still there, a little scabbed over, but no smaller than before and definitely not going anywhere. It got bumped and prodded and now it's starting to ooze a little. I can feel it start to fester, and it hurts a bit, but it's a sweet pain that's perversely addictive, the kind that reminds you that you're alive. And now all I want to do is rip that scab off and let it bleed all over the place, screaming for recognition, validation, retribution. It's all I can think about. I sit with my hand poised at the edge of this wound, contemplating, taunting, threatening to act, then deciding against it, back and forth along the edge, again and again. I keep thinking the only way I can heal the wound is to violently reexpose it, so it's fresh and raw again, impossible to ignore. I don't trust another balm to heal it, as the very thing that caused it was the cure to another, deeper wound - a salve that turned out to be an insidious poison, seeping in, infecting me, filling me with this slow, burning sickness that sits under my skin, ready to erupt. And so now...now I have this wound that I can't quit picking at.

Tallulah

This weekend I was having dinner'n'drinks with my friend Janis and we were rapping about the usual topics -- love, sex, the existence of God, whether this was the forth margarita, or the fifth -- when she concluded, "Love...what a strange thing...it's so...excellently horrible." She may have said "horribly excellent", and at that point, she may actually have been talking about the margaritas, but nonetheless, the sentiment struck me as incredibly accurate and profound.

Later, that same weekend, I envisioned myself and 1-2 other saucy female vocalists fronting a modern-rock band called Girl On Girl, which would draw an audience of horny males hopeful that the name might lead to the action onstage. It wouldn't, but who am I to keep someone from their dreams?

As the weekend played on, I thought about how the beginning of it seemed miles from the end, how the week before seemed a lifetime ago, how A&E appeared to be airing a nonstop Biography of Bob Newhart Sunday night, and how in general, my concept of time was distorted at best and maybe that was why I'm always late, or maybe it's just because I never leave on time.

Still, I could feel my world starting to shift again, and I tossed and turned in my bed, trying to sleep while waiting for something I have yet to identify, that something new that will turn my head and provide a new outlet for my obsessive nature. I thought of the ways I could get myself into trouble, the ways I had, the ways I would, the ways I wanted to...and finally lapsed into sleep, dreaming of all those things, new things, images that evaporated the moment I woke up, only to sit at the periphery of my consciousness for the rest of the day, infusing my existence with that same restless, anxious questioning.

And what does this all mean? I have NO idea.

Tallulah

Nothing like starting your day having a torrid dream about someone you actively dislike to make you ponder just how whacked your subconscious may be...and your conscious...and your life in general. Oh well -- it's cheaper and more personal than porn, and it actually increased my tolerance for the real cretin a smidge. You know what they say: Make love, not war, and no one ever got specific about the dirty details.

Tallulah

I'm sad, and yet apathetic. Sadly apathetic. Apathetically sad. Sad about being apathetic. Apathetic about being sad. Well, I think you get my point..."the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament." Whether I'm a genius, insane, or both, is, at this point anyway, mostly subject to opinion.

Call it depression...because it no doubt is. There's little more than a day left in this wretched year, and good riddance, I say. Sometime last summer I lost my joie de vivre, and it since seems to allude any firm reclamation. And thinking about this now, I wonder if really it didn't flit off months before that and I was just living off the fumes of previous joy all that time. Cheery thought, no? But the Year of the Dragon was supposed to suck for me regardless. The Year of the Snake is supposed to be better, but that just makes me think about the Snake who helped steal my sunshine, and whom I've been semi-obsessing about for the past week/year. So then I turn on the tv to try to distract myself and am quickly reminded of a pressing desire to leave the country for the next 4 years. It gets me all cranky and cynical and then I realize that at this rate I'm going to morph into the kind of malcontented grump who can't get enough of "can't" and generally makes my skin crawl, if that hasn't happened already. Sigh. This isn't getting me anywhere, is it?

I usually like to look back at the year that was and pick out the special moments that kept it from being just one big cesspool of blech. And I must say, without my friends (most of whom are probably not reading this -- hint hint, nag nag), finding those fond moments this year would be nearly impossible. You're the apple of my eye, the wind beneath my wings. In the words of a beer commercial, "I love you guys!" Even if you did vote for Bush. :)

But on to more amusing musings. Last night I dreamt that Britney Spears almost died from falling off a tall ladder down a very deep hole. But at the last moment, she did a backflip all the way back up to the top of the ladder, that plucky girl. This is what I get for inadvertently viewing her latest video just before retiring for the night. The reason I bring this up (besides lack of something better to discuss) is because said video was just playing on the Disney Channel, which is amusing enough in itself, but more specifically, there is a moment towards the end of the video where our overexposed heroine is walking through the rain fondling herself forlornly and suddenly looks down at her half-dressed self with confusion and surprise as if to ask, "What the hell happened to the rest of my outfit?" I'm sure I wasn't supposed to find this funny, but I did.

Tallulah

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