Stuff I'm Listening To (9/1/23 Inside Voices)

Here are some things about me:

1. I am learning about dissociation. 

2. I am so fucking good at dissociation. 

My whole life I have been staring into space dreaming that I’ll stumble over, run into, get a Hogwarts letter regarding my latent superpower. I’ll wonder what it is. When pushed to my absolute emotional limit, what force, which element, is going to explode out of my body and make ripples in the atmosphere?

Fire’d be cool. Maybe a shriek that cuts mountains in half. 

Of course my superpower has been here with me the whole time and it’s not fire fingers or dangerous screaming. And like in every storyline ever, I’m intuitively great at it and it’s absolutely out of control. My ability is that I dissociate. 

(What’s that?) Well, it’s like I disappear.  (Like you’re invisible?) To me I am. You can still see me. (Huh.) But I can’t see me. Or feel me.  (Physical sensations?) Greatly diminished.  (Emotions?)  What are those?

I am so good at this state of being – so practiced – I can drive a car like this. I can be in romantic and platonic relationships for up to three years at a time like this. I can write blogs like this. 

(What kind of max capacity stress load are we talking about that sets all this in motion?)

Ah, well, unfortunately it’s quite low. It’s really really low.  Example: Someone I know wants to talk to me.  Example: Someone I don’t know is looking at me.  If it could make a toddler cry it’s probably gonna shut me down. 

The good news is that once I have dissociated I can endure ANYTHING. The bad news is that I am dead inside, more or less, and the gravity of any given situation will engulf me in shame/fear/dread/guilt/anger/etc. eventually. 

I am still workshopping the positive practical applications of this gift. And also the responsible use of it. 

Like with writing, I know I can dissociate enough to leap-frog over my crippling fear of vulnerability (the heartbeat of human connection and art and meaning) in order to be vulnerable BUT What we’re talking about in the lab is Can I come back home to my body and to the present moment?  Can I live there?  Here?  Can I keep me safe and the fire in its place?

Stuff I'm Listening To (8/23/23 -- Bette Midler)

This morning I listened to Bette Midler’s cover of “Is That All There Is” and then Spotify read the room correctly, again, and showed me her album No Frills from 1983. I’m as surprised as the next guy but I think her covers of “Favorite Waste of Time” and “Beast of Burden” are really fun. 

I have loved Bette Midler the actor since I was a little kid because Big Business was one of 100 movies I watched over and over again at my dad’s house. I did not love Bette Midler the singer because the songs of hers that I knew like “The Rose” or “Wind Beneath My Wings” were much too big, emotionally. I was too insecure and world-weary to give anything sentimental a fair shot. To be fair, though, I was already 6 when Beaches came out. 

Big Business is also from 1988 but it was 100% for me. It has everything: rich people and poor people; country people and city people; a slapstick baby switching scene; mistaken identities; and the best part, surprise twins. 

Surprise twins was one of my favorite movie and TV tropes. 

Of course Twins was another movie I watched 100 times that came out in 1988. In Twins, some scientists Frankenstein sperm from 6 geniuses and use it to impregnate 18 year old Heather Graham. She gives birth to the genetically flawless Julius (Arnold Schwartzenegger) and an extra dud baby, Vincent (Danny DeVito). Vincent is so obviously awful right out of the womb that they send him to an orphanage in New York. Julius grows up on a beautiful island that has a lot of enrichment opportunities. 

I’m trying to wrap this up. I’m trying to get back to Bette. Music is so slippery and lately all I want to do is rewatch and recap all the movies I was obsessed with when I was little. I’ll crawl through any tiny window to get there.  

Stuff I'm Listening To (8/22/23 -- All Ron All The Time

I think it’s Tuesday and my brain is uncomfortably full from the media I’ve consumed this week about what a cruel bonehead Ron DeSantis is (The Daily – Inside the Sputtering Campaign of Ron DeSantis; Pod Save America –  The JV Republican Debate; Behind the Bastards – Part One: Ron DeSantis: Florida Man; and a quick go fuck yourself at the top of The Dollop – E596 Slave Thomas H. Jones). 

It should be illegal to want to be president. Or like, troubling instead of commendable. Debate questions should be: Who didn’t love you? Are you running for president or from the void? The song “Is That All There Is,” tell us what it means to you?

[I just played Tony Bennet’s version of “Is That All There Is” for research even though Peggy Lee’s is untouchable. Now Spotify is killing it, giving me more sad jazz and then even sadder jazz. It’s extra tinny coming out of my phone speakers and I’m imagining me and Migo slow dancing forever in the Gold Ballroom at The Overlook Hotel to “Moonlight Serenade.” Even if I had to wear a dress, eternity with ghouls sounds lovelier than any more time with Tiny D.]