The Old Serotonin

I don't know how it works the other way around, you know?  I mean how men can make you feel.  Men don't make me feel much other than competitive.  I'm not sure what they do to a homosexual men or to a cis-gendered female.  Do they make your heart flutter?  Do they give you that big, gushy serotonin feeling?  I don't know.  Just let me have my moment here, o.k.?, my privileged, patriarchal, male-gazing way.  

Or just my emo-homeboy way.  I'm a romantic, so I think it would be unfair to put other boys in my box.  They might resent it. 

But for me, a woman can turn the world around with just a word.  

"How are you doing?  Are you having a scotch?"

"I did, but I am having some herbal tea now.  Are you judging?"

"Judging?  No.  I like it."

"It makes me fat."

"Fat?  No. Fun?  Yes.  Blah, blah, blah.  You know you are a badass."

That, of course, is when they like you.  If and when they want to, they can sink you into an unfathomably dark depression.  

"You drink too much.  You're a fucking alcoholic.  You just sit with your whiskey and get fatter and uglier in body and spirit!"

Something like that.  I have to keep reminding myself.  The balance of my psyche depends upon it.  

It doesn't matter how much you understand it, though.  Me, I mean.  They can take you up or down at will.  Excuse me.  Again. . . me. 

The trick is. . . and I've learned this the hard way over and over again. . . never to get comfortable.  The moment you let. . . sorry. . . I let. . . them blow up my ego, I'll start being really brilliant.  You know what I mean.  Stupid.  I'll just show off what I know, quoting, opining. . . showing the marvel that I am.  And then, you know, they wake you up from your opium dream and you realize what a puffed up dandy you were being.  

I mean "me."

Rule number one: Don't try to be smart.  Don't show off.  Just don't.  She's going to ask you questions.  Be brief.  

See. . . I tend to over respond.  And suddenly, I'm in my own head having the conversation.  I'm answering from every angle I can think of.  And then. . . I come to.  Oy!  What a fucking dope.  

Anyway. . . yea.  They can make you giddy.  

"And they lived happily ever after."

We all know THAT is bullshit.  We know what happens if you follow the story out to the REAL ending.  

"And then he died." 

I guess that's "they died" now, but that is confusing.  Did one or both of them die?  

It makes me think of the Cummings poem, "anyone lived in a pretty how town" (link). 

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

Old e.e. was a real romantic, he was.   

I just went down a rabbit hole.  I Googled Cummings.  He married his cousin with whom he had a child out of wedlock after she left her husband, but they split up and later he spent the rest of his life with the first supermodel and photographer, Marion Morehouse.  Looking up images of Morehouse, however, I came across the name Lea Niako.  And then images.  Holy mackerel.  I will pursue my knowledge of her more later.  My god, those artists and writers of the early part of the 20th century were something.  I swear, the world was so much smaller that even though travel was so much slower and more difficult, they all knew one another.  Everyone, it seems, was connected in one way or another.  And they were like evil, brilliant children.   

What a world.  

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
But now God knows
Anything goes

Lea Neako

I have definitely lost my way at this point, and I have a busy day.  Busy for me, anyway.  And so, I guess I will away, as they once said.  

But yea. . . I'm trying to keep my head about things and not be stupid.