A is for Awesome.
Eeee! I just met that Morgan guy who did the Supersize Me movie out on the street while walking around on lunchbreak. Trailed him for a about a half block down the street trying to get a look at him from the side, to no avail. He’s pretty svelte and quick these days without the mickeydees weighing him down, it seems. so i jaywalked thru midtown traffic with him, all the while checking him out. “it’s him… nah, it’s not him… no, its him… no, uh, is it him?..” until I dropped back a bit and saw the buttons on his backpack – one with a pic of W with a red ‘no’ line thru it, and the other, a mcdonald’s logo with OBESITY in the box where it normally says “over a billion sold” or whateva. That was the kicker. (Im sure, by that point, he was thinking that I was gonna try to knock him down and steal his wallet or sumthin.) So i went “scuse me, but are you the person who did Supersize Me?” he stopped and said he was. He was totally nice, and was like “im morgan whateverhislastnameis" (I blanked it out cause I was starstruck I think). I introduced myself, and told him the film was sooooooh awesome, and thanked him for his work, that it was great great great. then i lied and said I do a zine (i have been starting one so not a huge lie), and asked if I could interview him for it, maybe over email. He said “sure. I’d love to.” Im sure it was his nice way of being like, “yeah yeah, wacko. Just lemme get on with my day, crazy lady,” but I duncare. im gonna email him. I was pretty much a dork, but how cool is that?? Tres tres cool. I was like on drugs afterwards.
Chalk one more up for “NY rocks.”
Oh, and life continues to become bigger as the walls of otherness fall away. Not to harp on a theme, but, in a very direct way, this is like alcohol's powers sometimes – previously doubted possibilities availed. Self-imposed barriers challenged and felled. Opportunity unleashed. Worlds opened!
Just emailed this to Bet, and she agrees. Some similar threads there. Comments?
posted by aimee @ 3:15 PM
15 Comments:
I agree. Easy chancetakin goodness, floatin.
Easy chancetakin goodness, indeed. Like "who knows what's gonna happen? Well, let's just leap, and consider the possibilities later, if we need to." Leaping is fun. And done quite a lot in unschnockered states by us four, but perhaps not often enough, huh?
Like, i have vertigo, you know? Not the kind that makes you dizzy and disoriented when yer way up high, but the kind that makes me feel joyfully compelled to hurl myself, nay -- fling myself off into the abyss below when im on sumthin really high. It's another form of vertigo. i always just used to think that i had a strong suicidal side. Nah. Just vertigo. Well, maybe vertigo too (don't worry. ill never do nuthin. promise.). But maybe that's part of it too - risk taking, busting outta convention, going where yer not supposed to go. It's bliss. And drinking makes doing it easier and more inviting sometimes.
Funny, I have that, too. I remember taking the train to downtown Chicago for my ballet classes and forcing myself to stay away from the rails lest I throw myself in front of the incoming train just to see what it's like. I never considered this vertigo, but lessee: according to an online dictionary, all definitions of vertigo are associated with reeling or dizziness. One vague definition says "A confused, disoriented state of mind." I guess that fits.
I know there's something about hurling myself into situations that give me the slightest inkling of fear. A continual conquering, maybe. This goes for things I might say, as well, which I have learned to curb somewhat over the years. Action is often a bit less hurtful and embarrassing in the long-term.
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it IS TOO vertigo. simple dictionaries and encyclopedia's don't have all the stuff. this is textbook, baby.
yeah. back in the day, i used to TA for a human development class. was this huge auditorium of college kids. mostly straight up lecture, but the prof was awesome, and she would engage the students whenever possible. so, she was talking about abnormal psychology one day, and she brings up vertigo. "One kind of vertigo actually has to do with the compulsion to throw yourself from heights. Does anyone have that?' she asked. no one in the room raised their hand or looked anywhat moved, and, as a TA, i didnt feel it appropriate to participate. but, inside, i was dying. in my head, i was like "oh, me! i totally have that! and, wow -- that's vertigo? how awesome!" such relief it is, sometimes, having something yer kinda nervous about named and recognized.
yep. vertigo.
anyway, yeah. leaping. i remember when you used to be that way with words, Bet. you were very volitile and kinda scary then. never knew what you were gonna disclose about us or about anything really to strangers. it was a very loosely hinged constraint you had at the time. and, yeah, throwing aside immobilizing self-imposed worries and constraints to jump into something scary almost always proves wonderous. and totally changes life by maknig a mockery of those limitations. alcohol helps that, huh? but doing it sober's awesome too. and, we're bold. we jump into scary things sober a bunch. but it's just not nearly as natural and painless of a process getting there during those time (as i mused earlier). the head's a mighty force to grapple with. you see that too, huh?
xo
Yes, i'm a little intense that way. I do things so overboard when I'm first exploring them. But there's something about the leapin-in while unsober where I feels more in control of my reactions and emotions, as well as more aware of my surroundings and the dynamics of those around me. It's like I'm standing on a very firm foundation. From speaking to and observing others, I've learned that most people acknowledge being the opposite of this when they are drunk, which makes me assume that I am like them drunk when I am sober. By the transitive property, of course. I may be fooling myself because Jesse begs to differ, but i really believe that i am more on top of things. And then he's usually observing me from the general drunk mind, which is commonly fuzzy.
When I take the chances drunk (but not too drunk - we all know the difference), they're very calculated. As contrasted to when I take the chances while sober, where it's usually a blinded-pitching-of-my-energy-toward-the-unknown-don't-listen-to-those-warnings type of thing.
My biggest challenge these days is teaching myself how to be more like the ways I am happy with myself when I am drunk or high. Listening to the warnings is one. I think I'm doing better lately.
Bet's comment here: But there's something about the leapin-in while unsober where I feels more in control of my reactions and emotions, as well as more aware of my surroundings and the dynamics of those around me. It's like I'm standing on a very firm foundation... Jesse begs to differ, but i really believe that i am more on top of things." is totally interesting, cause i think the main thing is not BEING in control, but our PERCEPTION of it.
whether we really are or aren't in control or on top of it, i see as extremely secondary to our confidence and feelings of trust in where we are, what we want, and where we can go. doesn't matter if we've really got it goin on. i think we are just able to capitalize on things much better if we really FEEL it -- the sense and assuredness and confidence and boldness that comes with believing that we're safe and in control. who cares if it's real?
tonsa high school boys get away with it for YEARS before we've ever expereienced it, this whole "im the shit, im gonna do what i want" thang. that's why hoards of musically untalented and unrehearsed guys are able to take over open stages and start up bands together, why they rule the skateboard parks and demand that others get out of their way, and why they go into engineeirng and computer science college programs and are able to not care too completely if the teacher gives them any attention. they know they're good. they know they're deserving. and they're gonna do it. its the perception that matters. girls aren't taught this at all, or even allowed to keep up these guises.
yeah, yeah... sometimes, well, often, with these aforementioned hs boys, it's a wrong perception. but, again, who cares! in the end, it ends up meeting the desired goal of giving the person permission to do what they wanna do. of getting them to do it.
which is why "fake it til you make it" always helps.
...again, this perception of control/ability/deservingness held by the tipsy and hs boys alike allows worlds to open up, possibilities to spill out, confines and limitations and othernesses to crash and burn, baby. the perception provides momentum that can change things dramatically for the better. takes delusion or drunkenness maybe sometimes. but pays back in SPADES!
So if we were a cartoon, would our power pellets be slugged out of a flask before we saved the world?
maybe! but im still sayin that we have our moments where we get there sans the flask-ed power pellet. which doesn't make us any more or less of a superhero.
everyone talks about drinking as unhealthy and damaging, but nobody talks about the effects of living under the fukdup internalized systems of belief and restraint that force us to live in constant conflict with ourselves and in endless self-doubt. thought we challenge it on the surface, its deep and cutting, adn what we are taught to believe on many levels doesn't align with what we know or experience or want. think, in this case, that drinking should be seen as not a bad thing, not medicinal, but an agent in a multifactored attempt to restore health to damaged and disconnected psyches.
we have lots of demons. i think we need to use what's available to us to be able to do what we can. within limits, of course.
nkoe im probably appalling someone with this. let's discuss, superfriends!
I liked what you said about the perception of control before. Because you're right, it's actually the opposite of control. But maybe letting go of some of that anxiety that we all carry, which you mentioned earlier in this conversation, is a key for us being able to function in this all-powerful level. And liquor is just a quick in to that.
And I definitely do not deny the power of sobriety, let it be said.
but then, what is this, this sense control? it's a feeling. a construction. we make it up. so i would argue that maybe it's not the opposite of control. sure, the opposite of the definition of control. but not the opposite of either the sense of it, and of it in its true sense.
ok. i'm out! smoochies, sissy!
oh, and some people, they don't get this feeling of control from drinking copioulsy. some get emotive, others, self loathing. some just hurl. think it varies widely, and is a cherishable thing.
and, yeah, for us -- maybe genetically, maybe environmentally, probably both -- i think is a portal that helps us unleash our own power.
and i know yer a believer in the sober act too.
now im going home! good waxing!
i'll write more when i'm drunk.
Bet!
What say you now of drink and power on late Sunday night (or Tuesday or Thursday or Friday night. Just not on a M-F morn or afternoon here, ideally. Unless yer job is really weird.)?
You said you were gonna write more after imbibing! Cmon. You can write SOMETIMES from home!
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