Mind bereft. Soul uninspired. Situation tenuous.
Here’s something from 2003.
I tend to get very inspirational and New Agey when I drink. Everyone is so beautiful with lots of zippy color lights emanating from their auric beings.
Also? I can get a bit controlling, wanting to orchestrate my surroundings to my liking, perpetuating some goodwill fantasy my fevered brain concocts in the dead of night.
When those two tendencies collide, it makes for an interesting mix of sweatiness, embarrasment, cheesiness, love found, and most importantly, love lost.
This past New Year’s at a friend’s party, where I knew no one, I insisted they all remove their wine charms pronto! because I was going to read their fortunes as symbolized by the dangly silver baubles. Said baubles consisted of a margarita glass, a lemon, cheese slab, corkscrew, baguette, and other stupid ass stuff that no Miss Cleo could read as prophetic, but which I could see right through to their hidden meanings.
I shook the charms in my palm and made each person take one, then show it to me solemnly as I was about to assist in their spiritual unfolding.
At the time, when I told Gene or whatever his name was, that his lemon meant he was a sour puss but the New Year would show him many wondrous delights to awaken his “happy” side, whatever that was, I thought it was the most profound fortune-telling I’d proferred in three cocktail parties. At least.
I completely forget what I told everyone else. God help the person with the cheese slab.
Later, I asked all party participants to write down the one thing they’d like to get rid of in the New Year. Then, I’d read these things aloud and toss them into the fire in a “Burning Bowl”-type ceremony I had decided I should preside over.
Afterward, my flock would write the one thing they wanted to concentrate on for 2003. As before, I read these hopes out loud.
Then in a dramatic flourish, I bounded upstairs and collapsed on the couch in a fuzzy-headed stupor, awakening 7 hours later covered in dog hair, ants crawling up my arm, and Clairol OutLast lipstick clinging tenaciously to one quadrant of my upper lip.
Clearly, a woman in charge of her destiny.
Also, here’s another excerpt from my (unedited) work in progress. It’s like a lame ass bonus.
She sighed with a gust of air forced through her teeth, as if frustrated.
“I’m going down a road I don’t have time for, girls,” Mrs. Lokken said regretfully.
“There’s really so much more to tell you. But for now, please know that my sister has the power. She’s reunited the witches who’ve craved more power than nature gives them. They long ago stopped protecting the Astral boundary, and are now using their abilities for their own gain.”
She talked faster, her eyes darting toward the fire between sentences.
“They were stopped. For good I thought,” she said sadly, her voice beginning to break. She rocked slowly.
“My sister has somehow managed to collect their stones and once they’re reunited with their keepers, I fear what comes next.”
Her eyes narrowed. “If the Astral boundary is once and for all broken, I don’t want to imagine what will happen.”
Annie and Coriander sat, rooted to their seats.
Mrs. Lokken looked kindly at the young girls. “I’m so sorry to tell you this, Annie. Coriander,” she tilted her head toward both of them.
“But your whole world may change. And sooner than you think.”
See ya.
I am intrigued…
I had the cheese slab.
You crack me up!
I didn’t even know what those things were until I went my sister’s Christmas party one year, and she was so proud of her wine stem charm-y things that everyone stood around and ooed and awed over them, while I, a single gal, who doesn’t entertain much, wondered what I was missing.
I love the way you write and think!
i get weird and ‘inspirational’ when i drink too, but i certainly do not get new-agey. i wouldn’t even know how to PRETEND to read a fortune – especially from a drink bauble!
oh, and LOVE the witches! MORE, MORE!
Again, with the whole living inside my head trick. How do you do it? I’m one of those people who discover the secrets of the universe when I’m drunk. Only, I discover them in the bathroom and forget them before I get back to the party, and am always frustrated by my inability to share my awesome revelations.
Geez, I wish I had years of archives to draw on at times like this when real life (or alternately, a lack of one) gets in the way. “Now here’s a special post from the deep, dark vault that is last week…” Nup, not going to work.
And I really, really want to read that novel. I hate that I have to wait for you to finish it and send it off and have it turned down by 7 publishers that will totally regret it later when it hits the bestseller list, before finally being accepted, edited (there’ll be some disagreement over the nude scene), printed and released in time for some far off Christmas and THEN shipped to the other hemisphere. Couldn’t you just post everything you’ve got to your blog now? Nah, didn’t think so. Still, hurry. Please.
I see a definite spiritual/astral connection between these two pieces!
This made me feel so much better about my drunken self and I’m intrigued by the second story, regardless of whether or not it’s edited.
Geez, I want to come to one of your parties! When I drink, I either fall asleep or jump on my husband. Or both.
Hmm…Your definition of “bereft” must be the opposite of mine. :)
your drinking stories always crack me up. are you bringing the wine to steph’s party later? it might make things interesting…
and the novel? i’d love to read more.
First of all, I love coriander (aka cilantro). I had a cilantro margarita once that was orgasmic. Secondly, can’ you just get horny when you drink like the rest of us? My wine charms are winter themed (fireplace, sweater, mug of cocoa, sled, etc.). The thing is, I always forget to use them. What might you use to foretell our future in the absence of wine charms, my friends?
you are an amazing writer! And you seem like such a free spirit. I love it! Keep it coming….
For nothing to see here, you polish it up and make it sound very pretty! Loved the tale!
Hopefully the cheese slab doesn’t find you here. You’ve got all of us intrigued…
Shoot. I should have read this again before we went out so I knew what to bring!
I love the first bit–great stuff! I think I know this person after just a few paragraphs.
I have no wine charms because I don’t drink wine. Would you care to read my oddly strewn laundry to tell my future?