The Greater Audience

 

Sometimes I wonder if we are being watched. Surveilled beyond our phones, from above. Like we are all Truman in The Truman Show. If there is a dimension beyond ours, who has composed this brilliant spectacle we reside in, then they probably appreciate enthusiasm; singing in the shower, narrating the steps of making morning coffee with the angelic cadence of Ina Garten, and strutting through the house like Naomi Campbell. They are most happy when we are nice to each other.

I doubt they call this entertainment “reality TV,” but it must have marveled at the onset of theater, radio, television, and shorts. Our true purpose manifests within the experiment. We are all the lead characters of our own movie and need to bring the main character energy not to disappoint whatever audience there is. If time moves differently in whatever greater dimension might exist, perhaps we’re actually our own audience. Imagine yourself having a knee-slapping great time watching yourself maneuver through this path of life.

I was probably delighted in the ups and downs of this last month. I thought my celibacy would be a thing of the past because I ask-believe-received myself a person who was on the same page about getting down without having to participate in a fantasy that the other person was going to deliver on completion rather than depletion.

I might sound a bit like Goldilocks here, but the person I met took a little too much time, I could tell they watched too much porn, and they were too serious when they started calling me “professor.” This made me laugh and then sort of gag, but I took a fat hit of weed before, and I had to let the moment just exist, and say to myself, “Gosh, I didn’t know he thought so highly of my career.” 

I’m sober, and this was the first time I got stoned in a year. Sex on weed is better because I can turn my brain off. There can be sort of a dark side. Like if the other person takes forever to finish, and you're just being pounded on like a ragdoll. Then they bark some order demanding eye contact, and they’re one inch above your face with hollowed eyes that scare the shit out of you.

When I drove home, I was paranoid as fuck. The trunk of my car is broken. I don’t know what happened but it latched incorrectly, and the car always says that the trunk is open, when it is actually stuck shut. Since everything is electric, there is no mechanical way for me to open up the door and fix it. I drove home with the light on the trunk illuminated which was terribly distracting and stressful. 

When I got home I showered and got in bed and laid there still high. I don’t really know how to explain the feeling - it feels like a USB port is stuck in my brain and I’m downloading tons of files. It's a cool feeling, a waterfall of information that's rushing through me too fast to make any sense of.

It was all too good to be true because we were supposed to meet last Saturday. I was puttering around my house, and texted him about what time he wanted to meet. He replied, in a flippant tone I might add, “I’m meeting someone. Don’t know when I’ll be home.”

So I thanked God. He let me know this person who I did not know anything about is an asshole. I have endured (yes-that is the word) a series of unfulfilling relationships, and I’m finally smart enough to take an early red-flag for exactly what it is, and not blow smoke up my own ass on someone’s poor behavior. This storyline has ended, and I’ve sent him to Ghost Town.

After I read Rue McClanahan’s autobiography and she called herself unlucky in love after six failed marriages, I told my mom I could relate to her. My mom’s reply was, “We're all unlucky in love.” I don’t know if she just wasn't listening to me (very likely) or was trying to give me a hidden message (very unlikely) because she has been married to my dad for almost fifty years. Ultimately, I think my mom was saying, get over it and move on with your life.

This very short-lived love affair can be chalked up as a success. I could reset my involuntary celibacy. I’m too busy to get back on the apps again, so if I meet someone the old-fashioned way that is cool, otherwise, I’ll wait till I get bored on my winter break or next summer break.

The movie I’m starring in could lack the romantic story line that is delegated to a c-story in any genre other than romance. But, I have plenty of interrelationship dynamics to keep the story engine humming. Kids, my goodness, an endless well of concern and nail-biting that shows up in emails from the vice principal or calls from the nurses office. My family is, like everyone else’s, riddled with ups and downs we have to laugh our way through.

Today, I was in my office in between classes talking to a coworker. As we got up to go to our next classes I sort of sighed and said I had that hamster-in-the-wheel feeling. I popped into the bathroom on the way, and was horrified to see I had a freaking period accident that leaked through my light jeans. I didn’t have a sweatshirt to tie around my waist. When a student came out of the stall next to mine I asked her if she could see the blood through the pants and she said yes.

I had two classes left, where I’d stand in front of a room full of people with my back facing them as I wrote on the white board. Period through jeans doesn’t look red, not like it would make a bit of difference, it looks brown, which no one’s going to get behind, “I shit my pants, but I have a great work ethic.”

They’ll all literally throw their pencils at you like tiny spears and yell, “Go home, bitch.”

I walked to the class I was meant to teach, stuck my head in through the door, keeping my backside out of view, and announced, “I’m sorry, class is cancelled. I need to leave.”

I thought they’d be disappointed, but their young faces all turned to me with smiles and their eyes sparkled like Powerpuff Girls. They were ecstatic. This collective reaction must have elicited a standing ovation from the “greater audience.” A huge gasp at this burst of joy I just released into the world.

As I walked back to my car, self-consciously trying to hide my rear end behind my backpack, I felt a lot better. The day really turned itself around.