Hanging It Up, Moving Along

Sometimes I feel like anxiety is a coat. Not in the obvious "wear it, take it off way" (although, annoyingly, that works too) but in the way that it needs to be hung on different hooks, depending on where you are in the world. Or in your head.

Sometimes you can hook it onto things related to work. (Briny, spiky hook.) Sometimes you sling it over a lover (snakey, slithery hook). (They hate that. It's hard to breathe or move under there.) Other times you can just shake it off and throw it on the corner to eat dust with the bunnies. (Bunny dust hook.)

What the hell am I talking about? This I do not know.

I do know that this end-of-days deluge has possibly flooded my brain until I can't see the moon from the clouds and don't know when I will ever see the stars or the blinky-blinky skyline again. Oh, wait. I think doing taxes has rattled my brain matter. Forget that crap about record rains.

For various reasons, I haven't told you about how many friends I have in strange parts of the world right now. Two in India (separately), a bunch in Taiwan (performing in their geek-rock band), One (1) played a joke on his friends and family, sending out "An Important Message" declaring he is following the path of his lotus flower and will spend the rest of his "physical existence" in somewhere called Rishikesh. Yeah, his parents didn't think it was so funny either. Mostly, I wondered if my friend had lost his mind, and decided, hey, cool, maybe he did and...so?

Another traveller (2) is one of my former grad school professors, who has taken her out-of-shape, low-center-of-gravity body to the south of India. She is remarkable. Not only because she eats paper and has see-through skin that will certainly get crispy in the baking sun over there, but because she has been more of a mentor to me than I'd ever expected. She told me once I reminded her of her when she was young. (I hope I didn't audibly gasp. Likely I did.) I couldn't see then what a compliment this was. I do now. Thank you, former grad school professor. Thank you for believing in me. And for going to India.

And to the Taiwan freakazoids (3): Rock on with your geeky selves. They have been staying in a Wild West-themed hotel over there and having all kinds of wacky Americans-in-Asia encounters. Witness:

"Rabbits and deer hopped around on the opposite side of a wooden fence (seriously), and a display of Native American teepees lined the camp grounds. (What? Oh right, the wild west.)"

They showed a local a postcard of their band:

"At first he was confused, and then he was thrilled. He showed it to everybody in the vicinity, including a small child who had been watching us eat while blowing up a plastic glove to look like a cow's udder. The man ran back to his clothing/liqueur shop, and then returned a minute later with a bunch of bananas. "Eat Banana!" He said, "You need to be strong to play music, yes?" "Yes," we said."

Yes, they said. Yes.