You are the Marquis Du Sade. Even stripped of
exaggerations, Your real life was as dramatic
and as tragic as a cautionary tale. Born to an
ancient and noble house, you were married
(against your wishes) to a middle-class heiress
for money, caused scandals with prostitutes and
with your sister-in-law, thus enraging your
mother-in-law, who had you imprisoned under a
lettre de cachet for 14 years until the
Revolution freed you. Amphibian, protean,
charming, you became a Revolutionary,
miraculously escaping the guillotine during the
Terror, only to be arrested later for
publishing your erotic novels. You spent your
final 12 years in the insane asylum at
Charenton, where you caused another scandal by
directing plays using inmates and professional
actors. You died there in 1814, virtually in
the arms of your teenage mistress.
You are a revolutionary deviant. I applaud you.
Which Infamous criminal are you?
The rest of today's events, I'm afraid, were not quite as worthy of the Marquis' reputation. This morning was spent catching up on the lost sleep I'd incurrred over the week due to too many cups of coffee, then from the Cheerios dreams, and the other naughty dreams. The sleep was then followed up by some rather hard core loafing around - my loafing muscles have got some serious tone at this point, especially the sofa-sitting ones. I'm almost thinking that their grotesque bulk - enough to make any true body-builder jealous - has exceeded their usefulness, as they seem to be doing a fairly excellent job at making my thighs look terrible. At the risk of sounding Cathy-esque, I'll refrain from elaborating at great excess, but suffice to say that my short legs and loafing-muscle-toned thighs have really made finding a pair of business-suitable pants a chore, as I discovered today whilst shopping with my father. Being somewhat disproportionally top-heavy has also made finding a suit-coat somewhat difficult, but thankfully, Maxim's not quite enough of a stuffed-shirt establishment to require a full business suit. Still, I suppose taking the stairs to the first-floor cafeteria for a pack of red licorice doesn't count as exercise.
Tonight, I've decided to perform an experiment with cereal before bedtime, to find out whether the hallucinogenic dreams are a property of Frosted Cheerios, or cereal in general. Thus, here I sit, finishing up my bowl of Fruity Pebbles as I sleepily hammer out the last few paragraphs detailing today's events.
I suppose part of me almost wishes for the hallucinogenic dreams, as they seem to be the most private and vivid form of escape I can attain while at home, without feeling the least bit guilty. Alas, I fear that if or when the novelty of work wears off, I'll once again be feeling trapped and lonely, as I know that nothing's really changed around here, and I've still got to flail and claw for every inch of independence I wish for - it's merely that I'm not here 7 days a week to experience the guilt that comes with asking for permissions. I've never had the balls to say "no" to my asian parents, as many of you have come to understand - it's definitely the built-in asian-child safety mechanism, as I'm sure I've mentioned on numerous occasions. Thus, I fear it's gotten to the point where I need to psyche myself up at least a week in advance if I would like to ask for permission for anything large - and to carefully and evenly space my large requests, as more often than not, they result in a lot of frustration and immense amounts of guilt that require actual recovery periods. I never thought I'd get to the point where "getting something my way" immediately and reliably induces a feeling of terrible and illogical guilt. Nevertheless, despite this horrid process of permission bureaucracy and the psychological gauntlet, I managed to work up the nerve to ask for permission to arrange and pay for myself a trip back to Boston for the 4th of July weekend - as I've been watching airplane ticket prices rise nervously for a week, working up the courage to ask permission every day until this evening. Of course, despite the fact that my parents did eventually say "yes" in a way that wasn't at all begrudging, I came out of the whole ordeal feeling like absolute shit - like I'd asked one of them to sell a kidney for my sake - and I wish I didn't cry so much whenever I'm around them. I don't think any one of you has ever seen me uncontrollably weep without being able to explain myself - and I sincerely hope that it's one of those things no one outside of his house will ever see. Suffice to say, I still feel illogically guilty at the moment, as I managed to seriously bung up everyone's evening, and along the way I think I somehow managed to greatly upset my brother by being mildly irritated at his habit of beginning a question and then following up with "nevermind" and a FUCKIRRITATING reluctance to answer once you've actually invested a real interest. I frankly and repeatedly apologized after the fact until my ears bled, but he appeared inconsolable (yet another habit of mine explained - for those of you who would wonder and berate me for apologizing too much, *you* try living with people for which "I'm sorry" is *never* enough). *sigh* I keep forgetting that he's never seen me in a bad mood caused by isolation and missing the people I love, who are located all over the country. I think I was a lot less volatile back in high school, when my entire world was neatly contained within the limits of the greater Bay Area, and I didn't quite suffer from leading two very separate lives. Perhaps if I were to go back to leading that kind of a life, things would be much simpler - but no matter how chickenshit I am, I swear to you that giving up everything the little network of people I've surrounded myself with while out on my own is not something I will so easily cave in to doing.
I wish I'd had the courage to ask my parents earlier, when ticket prices were cheap so I wouldn't have to spend so much of my summer job money - I'm just such a chickenshit that I live in an illogical fear of my own parents to the point that it's damaging to my own life.
So, it looks like I'm one step closer to being able to come back for a visit July 4th - but more importantly, the most difficult step closer. The rest of the planning should be easier, hopefully. If I can find a round trip ticket for around $350 or less, I will see all of you on July 4th - if the prices are too expensive, I'm afraid I will have to either try for another weekend, or wait until late August when I come back for the school year. I'm truly sorry to all of you for such cowardice on my part - I know some of you insisted that I come to visit, and even threatened/enticed with beatings, but I'm afraid that I'm still not strong enough to be able to talk to my parents and ask for permissions that even remotely go against their wishes. Tomorrow I'll attempt to book a ticket, and cross your fingers everyone, I'll try to see you July 4th.
Alas, for though I've still got a lot on my mind, I believe it's long past time for me to perform the next step in my cereal dreams experiment. Perhaps more tomorrow, if my mind is still full.
Sending good thoughts to Steve today - hope tomorrow finds everything a little better than today.
Further bulletins as events warrant.
No comments:
Post a Comment