The Pleasure Principle

When we were in Mexico C brought all of these fun Origins products to slather on our tan, sore bodies. One of them was 'Shedonism' body lotion. It is shea butter and coconut and rich and creamy and delicious. I became quickly obsessed, taking showers just so I could rub the rich lotion all over my body, scoopfulls at a time; its tropical smell filling our cabana making me slippery soft and shiny. Then I'd sit on our couch or under my mosquito net with my hair in a turban and a sheet wrapped around me inhaling the sweet fragrance and allowing it to transport me and encompass me. Bliss. When we were packing to come back home she told me to take it home because it was so 'me.' She explained I am a hedonist, seeking and extracting pleasure from every experience. And shedonism gave me a lot of pleasure.

I find it intriguing that C perceives me as a hedonist because in the three years we've known each other, I've spent two being destroyed over and over again, kicked when I was down, and spent a long time lying on the ground, a bloody pulp, not caring whether I got ran over or not. So how could she ever think of me as a hedonist. I've been miserable for most of the time she knew me. I've been the unlucky recipient of a lot of bad shit. Where was the pleasure?

I think her perception of me is similar to my sister telling me time and time again that I don't live in reality or Illinois begrudging my excitment about the small (and sometimes big) things I'd get excited about by his refrain, "it's just life." My mom calls me 'buoyant.' I think that might fit the best. Even during the past two years I have had moments of beauty and perfection. Usually they are mere moments; the first bite of a much craved for burger. Waking up and realizing I don't have to go anywhere or do anything. A surprisingly beautiful day. Mailing all of my bills out and washing my hands of that most annoying task for another month. I didn't have many of these in late 2004 and early 2005. I think I mentioned yesterday that I got no joy in reaching my lifelong ambition of being published. Illinois stampeded on my pleasure maker. But being a fundamental part of me it grew back. At first it I only tasted small little crumbs of sweetness, fleeting, but noticed. Gradually I gained control over it. I remembered how to make my self happy how to make myself feel pleasure and where to find it and how to avoid it. It takes practice and focus but now it is as much a part of me as it was when I was in high school and cut math on Fridays because it was a double period and a test; I knew smoking weed on Friday mornings outside school would yeild much more pleasure. Or as instinctive as me running back to the fridge for another piece of chocolate. Or as obvious as knowing that skipping yoga last Sunday to hang out with A. and V. and BE all day would make me a lot happier than going to yoga and then home to an empty apartment and nothing to do.

I have been unemployed since last Wednesday.

I am not yet freaking out about not working. I am supposedly starting something that will commence on Thursday or Friday. In this industry you can't rely on anything. That's why I like it. That's why it works for me. I am cool with short notice and surprises and sudden changes in plans. I'm done freaking out about the uncertainty. You just have to surrender to it and take advantage of it. Your immediate future is in their hands. You don't have to think. I know if the one starting at the end of the week doesn't work out, they'll be another one soon enough. Better to have fun and enjoy the vacation.

I was able to pick up my aunt from the airport where she surprised my mom for her 60th birthday. I was able to sleep late and bake muffins and tool around the apartment and do a little cleaning. I was able to be lazy and stare at the ceiling. I was able to do a lot of writing. And then there was my bender of a weekend concluding at Barcade Sunday night where A and I brought our take-out burgers and fries from Kellogg Diner.

So maybe C is right. I have gone back to utilising two important skills. Pleasure and surrender. Saturday night in my black, sweater mini-dress and sassy boots, I was talking to boys and wearing my mustache (it was a mustache party). I decided to throw off the residual social anxiety the illness has caused and just be myself, the person I was at A.'s house at brunch on Sunday. Being myself had me sitting next to this hot boy who turned out to be a doctor and amusing him by making my mustache a goatee and then a uni-brow and then a mustache again. Being myself had me and A. running out to buy cigarettes wearing our mustaches and then hanging out on a bench outside taking camera self portraits of ourselves with our mustaches on and forgetting about the hot doctors inside who had been threatening to leave when we ran out.

Lo and behold they were still there when we returned. Interesting. My pleasure.