12

"Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you" - The Big Lebowski

There are days that feel as though the universe was thrown off balance for a given period of time. Not entirely in the sense that planets were misaligned or that the cosmos conspired against you but rather that the psyche, the ego, the mind, is turned on an awkward axis. It is never anything so straightforward as 45, 90, 180 or 360 but something more along the lines of 43.67 - it is close enough to a state of mind, a feeling, but it is slightly off. Nothing and no one has thrown you off balance but the world is tilted regardless. Even when the universe conspires with you in a clandestine moment of delightful irony and a happy ending to the sequence of events, you still have trouble rejoicing in it because all is not aligned. Is it just one of those days? Is it something that intends on lasting longer than you had intended? One can only wait, I imagine.

Many of us are fond of hyper-analyzing ourselves into a state in which we eventually hyper-analyze our own hyper-analyzation ... but is there truly any true remedy to what are clearly not palpable issues or even real conflicts but something too abstract to even place your finger on. Or maybe they are. And then you perhaps sit on a couch and vomit up your most inane thoughts and base tendencies to someone who either loves you too much or is paid too much to be bothered by your narcissism and try to piece together through verbalization what exactly is that thorn in your side. You've already picked out the thorns from the teasing in middle school, your Elektra complex, this guy, that woman and so on. And yet, something still remains. No matter how often you gaze onto your fortunate life, breathe in the sweet smell of overindulgence, desires collide with guilt, combine at different proportions to tarnish your sense of appreciation.

How I often long to be endowed with that real depth of intuition women from the old country are plagued by. It is something more than seasoned wisdom and a keen sense of intuition. It is almost paranormal. They can manage to become tyrannical matriarchs and use their power for ill... if only I could possess that sense of security, then maybe, just maybe... And it will all be an illusion because one cannot predict the future let alone control it.

11

So much time has passed since that day in the coffee shop when my anger set my bitterness aflame. The past does not seem as distant as I would have liked it to be. I expected to feel the same surrealistic detachment I feel for other members relegated to the past: their existence only a shadow of a memory so vague that they enter the realm of fiction. Rather, five months seems as if it were yesterday - it would seem the Spring has one crevice yet to thaw out. While I had hoped to feel a greater sense of detachment and ambivalence simply, enough time has elapsed that I am only allowed speculation.

Over the past few months, a greater portion of conversation than I'd care to admit has been devoted to speculation. No longer of what could have been but rather... what things are and what will be. Perhaps it displays insecurity still as well as narcissism; my ego finding it intolerable that existence can continue without me. I'm not alone in this. Others before me as well as along with me saunter about old haunts in form-fitting outfits hoping for an accidental run-in in order to both hopefully witness misery and flaunt jubilance. These moments, however, rarely go to plan if they are granted to us.

We so often concern ourselves with the love lives of others. Whenever families gather or one meets up with old friends, one prepares one's self for the inevitable, though many of us are fortunately prepared by a plethora of romantic comedies to deal with this situation. They will ask of that guy you were so enamored with and find you no longer enamored. One generally gets a range of responses but the most thought provoking is that which begins like so: "You know... there was always something about him that..." followed by an opinion from one brief meeting that while vastly uninformed, contains some element of truth. It is within these moments that I find myself speculating the most, but the egoist in me cannot help but reverse the scenario. I am always told that it's inconsequential or useless to think of these things either because the answer is obvious or it is irrelevant to my life. But in moments such as this, I can only imagine how it would have fit if the circumstances had remained the same and generally the results are tellingly painful not because nostalgia creeps in but rather my developed hyper-awareness of the greater picture often points me to alarming details I had overlooked for so long. I imagine dancing and champagne over what should be regarded with solemnity. I imagine the imagining of my reaction and ridicule it would provoke. I imagine quiet suppers, suppers during which the only sound are the scraping of forks and the sound of inhalation in between mouthfuls. I imagine suppers that recall the many nuances that were meddlesome or ludicrous, that baffled and would have tested the patience and understanding of a friar. I imagine mutating from one symbol into another. I imagine invectives and inside jokes. I wonder, however, which classification my speculation becomes synonymous with the truth.

But the fact remains that while all that is left is a caricature of the truth, one that has been distorted by time and over-analytical contemplation. If I were to see the truth, I should probably find myself surprised. It could never have the potential to be pleasant, however. If it fell into either category, it would be reprehensible to rejoice in one while bruising my ego with the other. Truth, then, is truly irrelevant. It would provide me with no more information than ignorance. It is as they say - Ignorance is bliss.