Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Hag Time

Right now I am in Hawaii, on vacation.

I never realized I had anal tendencies. What I have realized about my newly discovered anal tendencies is that they are not the slight OCD type that manifest themselves usefully in things like recycling or wiping bathroom mirrors down. My tendencies tend to lead me to do things like try on all my clothes as I attempt to pack them for a trip, inspect the divots in my shoes at four a.m., or blog on vacation.

So, here's to all those with unproductive anal tendencies. This wandering, gap-in-thought of a muse is dedicated to you.

While I was driving home from being graduated, sort of, I saw a hawk hovering over I5's uninspiring strip of grass medium. One time my good friend saw a beautiful white bird as we drove together, going somewhere. She was so excited at the make and model of such a lovely animal, she called her mother who was equally enthused about the fowl. I understood her excitement then, when I saw the large bird who was able to sustain his position by his instinctual knowledge of the buffering air currents and his own physical ability.

It got me thinking as I flew by inland central California's monotonous landscape, how I wish I could AIR HOVER. It reminded me of that enviable athletic ability of hang time. In seventh grade I was the first girl who had a jump shot. This jump shot of mine had the accuracy equivalent of a first time urinal user. Still, I was the first pick of the girls for the Folsom Youth Basketball Association that year. I remember my coach discussing my impressive hang time. However my glory was short lived. In eighth grade, all the girls had jump shots and mine was still the pee hitting the wall.

But I think hang time is an impressive skill. To be able to delay one's return to the ground; sounds like something R Kelly would sing an inspiring ballad about. I wish this skill could translate to the non-corporal realm, since nowadays I consider shopping a cardiovascular activity. I don't really get my kicks at the gym.

So maybe something like emotional hang time. The strength to delay a reaction or outcome that is often unpreventable, like gravity. Often times I am placed in situations that...rub me the wrong way. Dramatic, violin-music scenarios, the kind that even your friends will roll their eyes over as you explain it to them over a salted margarita rim. I wish in those instances I could leap high into the subconscious and half conscious state of my slanted, charged deliberation, and instead of plummeting magnificently back down into an angry text message or booze induced monologue,I would hover. Like the hawk, I'd employ my knowledge of previous mistakes and current irrational state and stay their until I figured the best time or way to swoop back down.

But do I hover? Nooooooooo. I plummet.

My girlfriend once told me (after I described to her a particularly embarassing case of plummeting) that my, erm, displays work for me.

"I knew you would," she said, as we lay on our beds. "It's just so you. And you get away with it. More power to you."

I guess I can sort of get away with the crazy. But then I have to own up to the crazy. And while I think that people who are sane aren't really as much fun (cue Kerouac quote yeech), I don't always want to be mad, as it drives me nuts.

I think I am going to work to my hang time.

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