Late Night Rambling

I'm listening to Tom Waits's new album on NPR's First Listen, and my friend F's descriptions of him keep coming to my mind...cheese graters....table legs....only I'm not much laughing right now because I just heard "Kiss Me."  Great God Almighty....  I think my house might possibly be on fire (no euphemism intended).  I need to go check on that.  And maybe take a cold shower.  Whoo.  O_o  Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is a song.

I haven't been in a very "write-y" mood lately.  Or anything else for that matter.  I engaged survival mode about two weeks ago, put my head down and hunkered down to avoid flying stupidity and fall out, and when the crisis had mostly passed, or at least the all-clear had sounded and what passes for safety around here had returned, I forgot to come out of it.  It's getting harder to do, actually.

I looked at my icon on FB the other day, and realized that I was using a shadow.  Not something else as I'm so prone to do, not a picture I'd taken that I like of something that's in some way representative of me, my past, or  some aspect of myself.  Not even Joan with her sword lifted on high.  It was my shadow, indistinct and edge-blurred, that was there to represent me.  That's what I had been drained down to.  I felt a little sick, actually.  I put back up the last photo I had that actually had my face in it, and while I'm not exactly thrilled with it, I felt better that I wasn't disappearing from the world anymore.

Because I'm tired of that.

As in I'm tired of waiting, tired of fading, tired of being in the background, tired of pretending to be less like it's some sort of obligation, some sort of requirement of my job or status or age.  I want to do ridiculous things, want to get the black velvet dress out of the back of my closet, the one with the tiny straps and the split all the way up one leg and find a reason to wear it again.  I want to be in a Tico bar dancing even though it's been so long I've forgotten all the steps and would have to learn them all again.  I want to be more or less living "Kiss Me," turning the familiar into the unexpected.

I just don't want to become that damn ghost in the FB picture.  After everything else, I don't think I can stand that.  There may be others who are trying to shove me into the background, but ultimately, I am the one who controls whether or not they can do it.  It's time to quit going so willingly, so much like I deserve it.