While I'm up here in the mountains writing, I've had lots of time to observe my own behaviour. It's obvious that a person is different in solitude than with other people. A lot more wedgie-pulling and butt-scratching, one would think. Although, I don't know how this fits in with the Most-Common-Self-Written-Wedding-Vow-Of-All-Time which is, "I can be myself around you." Which isn't really a vow of any kind, except maybe in the sense that the soon-to-be spouse can look forward to a LOT more butt-scratching and wedgie-pulling in the future. In which case, I wish you both the best.
Regardless. I am fully aware of the difference between being around people and being alone. And it's not that I'm a different person altogether, it's just that I'm a weirder, less-socially-functioning version of myself.
Things I Do When I'm Alone
- Consume atrocious amounts of the world's most precious resource, water, in the form of two to three showers or baths per day. This is more about comfort and warmth than obsessive complusion.
- Prodigiously use old-lady scented bath products, including jasmine and lavender. This, too, is about comfort and relaxation. Being confronted with creative forces all on your own is stressful. I'll take what I can aromatherapeutically get.
- Mumbling and wandering. There's a scene in The Hours where Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf wanders around town mumbling and looking quite crazy because, of course, she is crazy. Only I don't think mumbling is crazy. I think it's normal. Occasionally, I will look myself in the eye in a mirror and yell, "The bearded lady KNOWS!" Or something of that nature. It's fine.
- But it could be related to the constant state of over-caffeination.
- Become nomadic. I will begin a day at my desk. Then, when I feel stifled or antsy, move to the couch (which is, incidentally, right near the fireplace). And then I'll move to the kitchen table or the massive granite kitchen island, which serves as both a writing desk and a plate if need be.
- Create stylish combinations using these items: wool beret, scarf, wool socks, long underwear, down vest, sweatpants, sweaters, roaring fires and a thermostat jacked to 30.
- Pee with the door open. When I bathe or shower, however, I close the door. Because axe murderers are far more common in shower scenes than toilet scenes. One takes one's precautions where one may.
- Play the same CD approximately 15 times in a row.
- Suffer from acute agoraphobia mixed with inertia such that I struggle to leave the house. Especially if I've been working since first-thing in the morning. This leads to me getting to the bank at 4:58 p.m., wearing strange clothing which may or may not include a second-hand rabbit-fur hunting hat, a wild, slightly insane look in my eye and a symphony of nervous twitches and mumblings that have replaced The English Language and any social skills I may have, at some point in my life, had. It really is no wonder people think artists are strange.
- Possibly based on my inability to function in normal society or my constant need of comfort as demonstrated by the obsessive showering and application of heat to my body, pie becomes a viable vegetarian dinner entrée.
- Go to bed by 8:30 p.m. without fail. My sleep, however, is tossy and turny and terrible. Which may, again, be due to the over-caffeination. Or the fact that I'm at the Tumultuous Stage of my creative process, where my work writhes in my subconscious and won't let me rest until it breaks free of my head and lands on the page with a great splatter of relief.
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