Shanon's Cornucopia

Notes on the language of pain and how the things that have hurt me in life have taught me to discover the joy of existence, even when it takes work and faith.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

it's been a long time

i've been busy at work, busy with life, busy with everything.  i haven't posted here in a while, and there hasn't been much to say, but now...

so, having hiv makes dating hard, blah blah blah, i only date through hiv websites.  i met a guy i really really like, and it's been complicated, but i've gotten used to just dating people so i can get laid every now and then.  emotional compatibility is something that's kind of gone by the wayside.  and so i met this guy i really really like and we've been writing each other extensive and very personal e-mails.  some of them sexual, but more often than  not, we've been kind of emotionally bonding.

except it turns out he doesn't have hiv.  part of me is okay with this.  we've never met, and he admitted it when i asked a direct question.  the part of me that would usually dismiss him out of hand is quieter than usual though because i like him soooo much, and whatever problems may lie in the future at least there is a future.  there's no future with the 65 year old guy who sent a picture that someone took of him with an iv hanging out of his arm--looks like they shot it in a senior rec center.  or maybe...well, and i'm sorry because this is a stereotype but it's not 100% wrong--some straight non-drug-using guys contract hiv, but far more often the guys i date are either very cagey about how they got it, or they openly admit that they got it from gay sex (which they usually caught an accident) or illicit drug use.  i have nothing against imperfect people who do crazy shit, but the demographic reality is that there aren't that many datable people for me.

so the problem is i am bonding emotionally with someone who says he doesn't have a problem with my health issues but at the same time most of the infected guys i talk to want to meet right away and fuck--maybe that doesn't lead to relationships but at least i get it because i need to fuck too.  this guy doesn't every really directly answer me when i tell him directly that i want to meet him.

i am glad i (still?) have a heart but i don't want to put it in the way of getting torn apart and trampled again if i can help it.  which i can't, i know that's life.  i don't want to protect myself against living, but...

it's hard to work out how much of yourself to put into something--new relationships or possible relationships especially.  part of me is glad i'm not like them, but i do kind of envy people who are able to withhold themselves until--but wait, no i don't envy them because godamnit those people may save themselves heartache but they are narcissistic and as Socrates (Plato) tells us, it is better to be the lover than the beloved.  

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problems

1.  self-medication does not work but the other things that might help (grading down: meditation, yoga, being intentionally still, etc. etc.) are precisely the things that are impossible/very difficult for people who are hyperactive/manic.

2.  what i just said.

3.  i have just enough a.d.d. to save me from multilateral chemical addiction.  

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

ice pick

i had something violent and turgid

to write; no doubt it would have 

been something, but

i find i am too tired.  to muster the

energy it takes to be aggravated, to 

write aggravated.  maybe the

period of springly mania is

passing.  or maybe not.  it's not even

spring yet.  maybe i am 

managing it a little better?  wait... i guess

exhaustion following a sleepless

night is not evidence of a triumph over

neurochemistry.  oh well.  anyway, the chicken's good.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

ICE CREAM TRUCK

so i was walking down my block when  i saw it there, parked as if it is spring or something. it is not spring or something; we are still embroiled in the waning bitters of early march. annoyed, i strode to my front door but the pull and power of ice  cream cones proved too strong and i succumbed even though it is still winter. don't judge me.

[tastefullyoffensive]

[via]

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I enjoy good frowns.

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anihilation

okay, here's a scenario: what if you meet a person who is the right one, really really great, could be your soulmate, but...  something superficial fucks it up.  something superficial like--well, no, not a virus, but a doublechin, or a certain lack of 'bone structure'.  which is of course the chicken shit way of saying someone isn't pretty (handsome, whatever).  

SO HERE is what i learned just now: i bitch and whine about how hard dating is when you have hiv, and inside i feel a certain angst about the fact that i am a woman about to turn 40.  but apart from maybe 6 - 7 awkward years (when i was in my teens and had bad skin), appearance has never been much of a problem for me.  i mean i am regular looking, and i look good when i make an effort (the effort required is greater as i grow older, but still).  

however self-flattery is not the point of this post.  the point of this post is: i complain about how hard it is for me because of a virus, but i have my prejudices too, and physical appearance is one of my prejudices.  i tend to dismiss people who are not good looking.  and youngish-looking, and stylish.  oh well, i guess that sucks for me.  i guess i'll have to learn to expand my horizons, maybe.  i don't know exactly how i'll do that, because sex is important to me, and attraction is a big part of sex, and how can you control whom you're attracted to???  like i said, guess i'll have to figure it out.  

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

one day a week

is not enough to shed the dross of accumulated angst

it is not enough time to shed

stress and sorrow that

grows out of you when daily clashes

end in collision, crammed nerves, and all kinds

of other pain

time you spend at work is like

time you spend working out your muscles but

without the inbuilt additive of 

personal care

we crash our emotions daily

against other people

time and ruinously grand capital

expectations for the love of life

body and mental health one day

one day is not enough

it truly is not time 

enough to recover from

these abrasions.  i must figure out a way

to get more time

off.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

death to chickens

well no i do not like cowards.  and yet i am sometimes one myself.  but what i mean is: WE GOT A NEW CHICKEN AT WORK!!!  There are some who say his name is Runway, and some who say it's Chico, but I myself am undecided.  Maybe he should be called Renqvist.  Or is it Renquist?  How did the capitals creep in?

Anyway, the two people who saved Runway/Chico/Renqvist plucked up his spirits (hahaha!) by giving him a plate of food: rice and chicken.  not very tasteful, although it was probably tasty.  I am going to bring Renqvist home if the chicken fabricators threaten him with appropriation.  

The problem with 'skinny' pants is you have to shave frequently or they cause your shins to itch.  

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

dirty old man

i don't know: should i be concerned that one of the many dirty old men who comes in to work touched me on the shoulder the other day, and it kind of got to me?  he's old and rickety, and he wears the same leather jacket all the time.  his skin is the same texture as the jacket.  also, he has the most fabulous dog that he is always trying to give away.  i would take the dog if i didn't already have 3 opinionated cats, a turtle, and several fish living in my smallish apartment.  

this is why i go through spurts of sleeping with lots of people: it keeps me out of stupid trouble like old men whom i don't really like.  someone explained to me once that my star chart is trouble: i'm cancer sun, libra rising, and aquarius moon.  i don't know what all that means to anyone else, but it is in fact a pretty accurate summation of my personality and character problems (and strengths too, maybe even).  

some people i know tell me i 'fear intimacy' but i feel like that's just a dirty old shirt people put on the situation because they're used to seeing it there.  in fact, i am not comfortable with intimacy, but that is a far more surmountable issue than my need for long periods of solitude.  and i don't mean solitude like i want to spend an hour or two alone, i mean that i do not want to see people for months at a time.  hard on someone you're dating.  

on the other hand, i am somewhat adaptable.

but who am i kidding: i'm not really all that adaptable.  i like my space.  and i will eventually cut out anyone who doesn't give it to me.

maybe that's why the dirty old man sorta kinda appeals to me: i'm pretty sure he wouldn't be too demanding.

[feastuponthis]

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Pretty sure I need to eat this.

[sparquay-deactivated20160129]

IN ME NOW!

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godamnit, this is what i'm talking about: no one makes a decent grilled sandwich of any kind in bushwick where i work and they bloody well need to get with the program.  i think i'll eat grilled cheese with bacon and shallots RIGHT NOW!

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one reason for alcohol/other sedative substances

only of course my interesting and particular biology does not process drugs in the usual way, so a depressant becomes a stimulant, and stimulants calm me down.  holy hell.  and:

oh great, another set of insomnia is coming on. i should know by now: whenever there are a lot of words, there is very little sleep. too many ideas, too little time, too much speed too few moments too much mental overstimulation and it burns through your brain into the bone of your skull and then before you know what is happening the molecules of your physical being are all asunder and your soul is escaping into the atmosphere, only held together by the motive force of a hyperactive imagination SCREAMING words and noise and color--- life is very bright sometimes. and sometimes it is not.

conclusion: i am presently hovering within myself or selves, having alcoholically reduced myself or selves to a pile of half-functioning rubble.  maybe this is why i LOOOVVE samuel beckett so much: his stories are all about the reduction of self.  words expand and crap all over the place as consciousness seeks air and finds instead a decreasing number of strange (as in extrinsic), extrapersonal (i.e. linguistic, i.e. review lacan's essays about the impersonal relation between language and subject etc. etc. and excuse me but i get fucking pretentious when i'm tired) phrases...  the idiom of a self that has been reduced is strangely broad and loose, however.  

but that doesn't get me and/or myselves any closer to the blessed abruption of unconsciousness and godamnit my spellcheck had better learn some new motherfucking words or i will DISABLE IT (somehow--i don't actually have the technological acumen - nor yet the patience - to lop off the tentacles of its ill-mannered, narrow opinions).  

second conclusion:  too many words, no good, need sleep, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

well, shit

i guess i'm not mortally tired anymore, but although i should be pleased, it makes me fear what is to come.  not fear, not exactly.  

the problem is that now my brain won't shut up and i'm pretty sure that means... well, what, exactly.  maybe i need to fucking relax instead of getting upset and freaking out about which way my neurochemical pendulum is swinging.  i guess i have manic episodes of some kind, without depression (it is exhaustion from lack of sleep, apparently, instead of a true clinical depression).  

i am almost 40 and i do not feel like spending dozens of hours in doctor's offices just to receive a diagnosis that would have done me plenty of good 20 years ago but won't change my life much now.  i do believe that people can change, but at this point i am who i am, i am what i am, and what: will my brain suddenly become clear and sharp when it is convenient, only to shut off at the appropriate evening moment--what would it take to make that happen and would i even want it to happen?  

here's the answer from my point of view.  i used to go off ritalin/adderall every now and then, believing that it made me something other than what i naturally am.  maybe it does, but it doesn't, not really.  the fact is, my brain can do amazing things, things that are beyond a more typical brain (if such a thing exists, and the snob in me believes it does, but then the rest of me isn't convinced).  my brain is great.  my whole physical/spiritual apparatus is pretty awesome.  i am prolifically creative, fantastically imaginative, and sporadically bright.  sure, i can't EVER seem to pay my bills on time, and i have monthly dialogues with my landlords, con edison, national grid, etc. etc.  And the other things that escape my attention are almost more amazing than the unusual things my attention captures...

i don't know.  but here's what i think is true: i like myself, and that's good because i am myself, and no matter how many mind-altering pills i take they will never wire my brain a different way--and what a pity it would be if they did.  because functionality is important, but maybe (probably; definitely!!!) it is better to go with the grain of your neuro-chemical personality, to follow the trend of your own thoughts and the inclinations of your own soul--maybe existence needs all of us exactly as we are, and even though in my case that means a person plus amphetamines, it doesn't mean i'm not me, it just means i'm me with a chemical cattle-prod shoving me into rote mental actions i would be utterly incapable of performing without that extra ounce of stimulation.  because my brain doesn't produce enough dopamine.  or whatever.

and i work with awesome amazing people.  i hear wonderful conversations all over the place, and i have noticed that the world is full of extraordinary, fabulous souls.  but my soul is pretty great too, and it does things that make it unique and indispensable.  so i think i'll leave it alone for now.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

life lessons

every now and then something happens that makes me realize what a complete and utter asshole i truly am. for example, yesterday someone comes in to the stoneyard. i help him because it is my duty to do so, but my heart isn't in it: he looks like he's going to be tacky as they come--a pure bottom line, size-to-cost-ratio kind of fellow.  as we walk into the granite warehouse, however, the guy deflates all my presumption and arrogance in a single moment when he makes a beeline for my absolutely favorite slab in the entire place--dolce vita. and then, one by one as we walk through the rest of the warehouse, he becomes enthralled by afyon white (honed not polished) and basalt black neolith--my 2nd and 3rd favorite materials respectively. yes, i judged the book of the man by the white sneakered, velour jumpsuited, and jersey-accented cover. yes, i was wrong. a thousand times wrong. the thing is: it's good for the soul to be surprised like that, and if you know me well and are frequently entertained by my bouts of stupidity, don't worry: i'll be an asshole again real soon.

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

not red, burgundy

did anyone else spend many and many childhood hours trying to decipher the subtle chromatic differences that make a crayon yellow-green instead of green-yellow? if so, you will appreciate how impressed i was the first time my 6-year-old (at the time) nephew connor announced to me that burgundy was now his favorite color instead of light blue. connor has always been extremely specific about color, and a few questions made it clear that not only did he understand exactly why burgundy was burgundy instead of merely dark red, purple, or brown--he probably had a better grasp on the situation than i did myself. or perhaps it was just the confidence with which he corrected the examples i used to support my own personal definition of burgundy... maybe with age the taint of self-doubt will creep in to connor's aesthetic prognostications. maybe it won't. what i hope, though, is that he never stops being interested in making fine distinctions. it's the mark of a keen mind.

[dammmien-deactivated20141026]

[betype]

Jay-Z it’s never wrong by dammmien

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i got nothing to add

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fuck it, dad

so my little nephew at the age of 1.9 years old smashes something in the living room of my brother's queens apartment.  my brother and his wife hear the noise and run in to see if everything is okay.  they find my nephew standing over the smashed object looking guilty as sin.  

'do you have anything to say for yourself, georgie,' my brother asks his son, stern like judgment as only he can be.

georgie, whose soul i admire, looks up at my brother with big, naughty blue eyes, and says, 'fuck it, dad.'  

there is in me a strong self-pitying streak, but i have an equally strong fuck it streak, and i think i will spend as much time as i can in the coming months cultivating the fuck it streak.  

[shanonscornucopia-blog]

hair today, gone tomorrow

i guess a lot of people don't like women with short hair, but i am about to go and have all mine cut off.  i do this every now and then.  it's a silly thing to be nervous about, because it grows back, but i always do get kind of nervous.  and excited.  it's good to start fresh.