Friday, November 25, 2011

I Think I Got Lost On The Space-Time Continuum Highway


 I tried to assuage (and that's one of those words I have no idea how to pronounce but which I can use the shit out of when I write) my guilt today by cleaning up some gnarly, hardened dog poops upstairs. I then cleaned some of the spindle things of the stairway. Not too many. I didn't kill anyone, I just didn't help with the clean-up last night.
Best not to get crazy.

Poor Owen is as holiday dazed as I am. The boy would not take a nap. He screamed at me. No want it! No want it! And when I tried to sooth him by rubbing his back he yelled, "Stop it!" I would have called the cops if I'd heard him. It sounded like I was removing his fingernails instead of gently rubbing his back.
I gave up. We watched some inane thing on public television for children. Syd the Science Kid. They were talking about shots. Not tequila shots. Vaccination shots. Owen didn't care. He just wanted to sit down and not move and NOT TAKE A NAP! I read Vanity Fair. That Scarlett Johansson! What a babe!

Now here's something in that magazine this month that really pissed me off: There was an article on the Amazonian drug, ayahuasca. Now I actually know a few people who have taken this powerful hallucinogen in the proper setting with the proper shaman and they claim that the experience changed their lives in very, very positive ways. I have seen the changes. And so I was excited to read the article but no, Ted Mann, the author of it, had to focus on some nutcase who went down to the Amazon and did a whole shitload of ayahuasca and ended up obsessed with building a floating pyramid and doing a bunch of other crazy crap.
Come on.
It reminded me of the fact that I have never in my life met anyone who tried to fly while doing acid, OR damaged their chromosomes doing acid OR had a fucking flashback.
I keep waiting for that last one.

Mr. Moon bought a washing machine today. He went out into the world and he braved the crowds and he took my mother her purse which she forgot last night and he picked up my prescription and he bought a washing machine while I stayed here and tortured Owen and scraped up petrified poop.
They'll be delivering the machine on Monday.
I tell you what- I have never taken having a washing machine for granted. Ever. Not when it was sitting by the side of the 10 by 50 foot trailer I was living in with two children and covered with a piece of tin precariously nailed to a tiny shed roof, and I surely won't be taking this new one for granted, either.

I realized today that although there are many, many things which create anxiety in me, doing the laundry is one of the few things which I actually find soothing. Laundry, chickens, weeding, cooking. Mostly cooking. Regular cooking. You know. These are things that calm my soul.
Obviously, I was not meant for this time period. I should have possibly been a Peruvian Amazonian woman who washed her family's clothes in the river and grew corn in a little plot and took care of the chickens and babies and cooked stews of corn and ground pig and drank a bit of ayahuasca now and then. Slept in a hammock with three or four grandchildren. And my man could have spent all of his time hunting and would not have to go to town on Black Friday to buy me a washing machine or pick up my prescription for anti-depressants because I wouldn't need either one.
I wouldn't need a damn bra, either. Hell, I wouldn't even need a shirt!

Well, this is not the way it turned out. I am neither a Peruvian Amazonian Woman or Scarlett Johansson. I wonder who washes Scarlett's clothes. Maybe she does.
She knows Bill Murray.
Damn.

She probably even knows Keith Richards.

Double damn. And she's only twenty-six years old.
Or twenty-seven. Whatever. An unformed babe. With pouty, sexy lips.

Time to put the chickens to bed. The sun is going down silver in the west.
I ain't got no ayahuasca nor shaman either one.

Not too worried about that. I got chickens and I'll be getting a new washing machine on Monday and I got Mr. Moon, AKA, Zen Glen.

That'll do. That'll crazy-good do.

Amen.





19 comments:

  1. No good can come of yearning to be ScarJo. Believe me. Sigh.

    Ass-WAzh. French g sound, like in garage (if you're American, that is). If that makes any sense. Nice word.

    Poor Lil Owen. Definitely time for TV, in my book of bad parenting :)

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  2. Sid the Science Kid--I like that you spelled it Syd the Science Kid. That was me as a kid and me now too. Sounds like you will be washing away. No more beating the clothes on rocks. Have a good evening.

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  3. My granddaughter who will be 3 in a month when told it's time for bed: I'M NOT TIRED!!!!!!!! (sob) I'M NOT TI-RED!!!

    Then one day, going to bed is the best place in the world.

    Ditto on the LSD scare tactics.

    And I remember the years that I did wash clothes in a creek. Those were some kind of happy. Weird, huh.

    love this stuff you write, love you

    d

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  4. Jo- If we have to live in this crazy world, we can let our children and grandchildren zone out on some children's programming. Hell yes.
    And why wouldn't I want to be ScarJo?
    Do you have insider knowledge?

    Syd- Oh. I guess I was thinking of you. Ha!

    21K- I feel we have much in common.

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  5. Just a short note on hallucinogens. Back in the late 60's while hitchhiking around New Mexico, I took some mescaline in a small town. During this "trip" I had no urge to fly, but did see and understand how we are all one in this thing called life. The experience has stayed with me to this day as the most life affirming adventure I will ever know.

    Anyway, hooray for washing machines. I also never take mine for granted and love doing laundry. There is much to be said for putting the dirty in and taking the clean out.

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  6. Rubye Jack- Every time I did a hallucinogen I reached the point where I totally and completely understood that all is one.
    And I hold that truth to be self-evident to me after all this time.
    Love you, dear.

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  7. I know what you mean about laundry. When I first fell off the ride and couldn't make sense of anything, all I wanted to do was the laundry. It is sooo soothing. Folding....that's the best, when it's all toasty warm right out of the dryer!

    And I say it: as - swaje (long a), 'cause I hear people on Charlie Rose say it that way and they're smart..........well, some of 'em.

    Sounds like that boy is becoming his own little man!

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  8. liv- I'll take your word for it. And oh, Lord, yes. He is becoming his own man.

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  9. I am quite enchanted with the idea of you as a Peruvian Amazonian woman.

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  10. I'd much rather be you than ScarJo.

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  11. Yea, I keep on waiting for my flashbacks too. Occasionally when I look in the mirror, I get a sort of one where I hallucinated what I would look like when I was old... but I'm not sure it counts. :-)

    The Nahooms are out of town and I have their key if you want to use their machines, i'm sure they would not care, and you know you can always come here. Seriously, you know where they are. Easy access. That's a long time without a machine. If you wait till Monday, you'll be doing laundry till the cows come home.

    You should have brought Owen over to see the tree. He'd be mesmerized into a stupor. Oh the lights! Oh the colors! hehehe!
    xo

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  12. Mama! You should not feel guilty! Not for one minute! How many thousands of celebrations have you provided and then cleaned up after? You did and do so much. Matt and I were happy to clean. I had so much fun. It was all so nice this year. Now I shall go eat more stuffing.

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  13. Nearly everything I have read about ayahuasca infuriates me. I'm with you on those who take hallucinogens seeing wholeness. Out in the Karoo shamans chew hoodia root and it reminds them how to see more clearly, to look again at the abundant energies and endurance all around. Because some people abuse a substance doesn't make it dangerous or toxic in itself.

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  14. Sounds to me, Ms Moon as though you don't need all that extra hallucinogenic stuff. For someone who can write like you, with a family like yours, you've more than enough. But of course the rough times might go against that notion. And guilt can take a fair whack of assuaging.

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  15. Stephanie- Well, it was a fantasy for a November evening. But one that does sort of embrace my favorite things.

    Elizabeth- BUT SHE KNOWS BILL MURRAY!(Hee-hee.)

    Ms. Fleur- You sure you're not having flashbacks? Ha! My washing machine works semi-okay if I only wash a few things in it. If it wants to. I'm actually getting some of it done. It's sort of a hobby at this point. But if I need to do more, I'll call. Thanks, sweetie. Also, that Sid the Kid is pretty funny.

    May- YOU DID NOT TAKE ENOUGH PIE HOME! I love you so much. Tell Matt thank you again for me. Okay? Love, love, love.

    Mary LA- Yes! Substances which unlock our minds need to be handled with great respect and done in the same manner. Amen.

    Omgrrrl- Love you too.

    Elisabeth- Oh, I can't do them any more but I am grateful they had a role in my life when they did.
    Thank-you.

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  16. Well, I never tried to fly but I did nearly step off the edge of a steep embankment on the bayou at night in the woods once on acid. My friend pulled me back right before I stepped off the edge. But all my babies turned out perfect and I have never had a flashback. Oh the lies they told us and they wondered why we didn't trust them.

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  17. lucky me,
    i don't even know who Scarlett Johansson is!
    but i do know a wonderful woman who has bill murray hanging in her bathroom!

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Tell me, sweeties. Tell me what you think.