Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Diary of a lab rat, part II

I had alot of fun last night, but as usual there are little things that bug me... I feel like I really don't connect well with most people, like I'm somehow not hip to whatever it is that allows people to just sit and talk to each other. I think there is something about me that sets people ill at ease (I've been told I am intimidating), which is hard to deal with since I am usually very interested in getting to know people and in talking with friends. Somehow I don't communicate it well. Grrrrr. I went to the show with three beautiful women (my mate Anne-Marie, her sister Samantha, and our friend Jennifer), and there were three times (one with each of them) where I felt like something in the conversation fell apart, and it was probably my fault. (I always think everything is my fault... which *is* my fault).

Some little things bug me more than I wish they did: I wore a kilt to the show last night, and one woman had a very rude and inappropriate reaction to it, like she was morally outraged or something. I'd love to talk with her about why she was so upset, but you can't save everyone.

The themes that the Blue Men deal with in their shows and in their songs are themes that have alot of meaning for me: how conformity and control and cubicles are basically making us into some new dystopian type of creatures, not really human anymore. There are a couple of songs on the new CD that might as well be talking about my life in cubicle-land, and what I had to give up in exchange for a paycheck. You know those experiments they do where they put a rat in a maze, and if it goes the wrong way it gets electrocuted, and if it goes the right way it get the cheese? My job was like that, except every direction led to electrocution, and there was no cheese. Dehumanization for the hell of it.

My old friend Julie is married to Avram Gleitsman, who wrote alot of the lyrics for the new Blue Man CD... he did an awesome job. I hope it all works out well for him... I've never actually met him, but I have some emotional attachment to Julie and sort of vicariously to the rest of her family, and aside from all that I like to believe that intelligent creative people can use their brains for fun and profit without giving up their souls. From what I hear of Avram, and what I've heard of his work, he is intelligent and creative, and I can infer from Julie's relationship to him that he has a soul... which seems a rarity these days.

As I learn to deal with being ill most of the time, I find that I need to adjust my perception of who I am and how I fit into each of my relationships. Being in pain all the time means that I always have something to complain about, which doesn't make for very stimulating conversation. Thankfully I can bitch and moan here on the web without driving Anne-Marie or anyone else insane. I sit here and try to comprehend what is happening with my body, how to deal with constant pain and the loss of alot of the activity and mobility I had before I was injured... it's very strange, I feel like I should be able to just shake it off, but it won't shake off. I have some sort of irrational preconscious feeling that I've done or am doing something wrong, by being sick. I've never had to deal with it before on this level, where my body makes obvious decisions about how my head is going to function. It's almost like meditation... anytime I lose focus, the pain increases. There is no cheese, there is no cheese... *zap*.