how many acres, how much light

i got a man to stick it out
and make a home from a rented house
and we'll collect the moments one by one
i guess that's how the future's done

i'm so "mushaboom" today. which i think is a good thing. i think i was sort of a mess two days ago (as per the post, which was basically "well, so fucking what that I'm going to australia--no one cares, and no one should!" good god, angela chase) and i think that's entirely normal when your whole life is changing. you kind of pull a meryl streep and just run the gamut of emotions until they give you an oscar. i'm not going to judge too harshly, though. i think we're all allowed to just go through it. and anyway, my horoscope said my emotions were going to be kooky, and i should just allow them to be. and you know my feelings on my horoscope.

***

so i've been having these moments of enlightenment lately that, in intensity, land somewhere between finding the last missing puzzle piece and a visit from that angel with 8 vaginas in "angels in america." it happened last week on the c train. it happened again last night during spinning. yeah, i know. you usually check your enlightenment at the door at new york sports club, but i guess mine found a dark corner of my gym bag and made its way in.

i don't mean to necessarily turn this into a whole self-help thing, because y'know, i could. i'm actually quite embarrassed by my efforts to clean up my life. i mean, i'm happy to talk about the really awful therapist i saw in new york for a couple months (who, during our final session, pulled out every trick she had, including telling me she felt i have a habit of sadomasochistic relationships; yes, just call me mistress susan) but i would only rarely mention the therapist i had in college who was basically the best thing to happen to me since i cracked the parental controls on america online when i was 14.

essentially, though:

always an impassioned topic of discussion: "best crying jag you ever had."

only when i'm really drunk, and only that special sentimental drunk that usually comes with gin: "the importance of falling in love."

never: "have you ever read anything by louise hay?"

there's a total stigma about self-help. i think it's the cheesy book covers, the overwrought titles, the general idea that there's something terminally wrong with you, something you should be able to shake off, drink off, fuck away, sleep on, whatever. and granted, i'm really picky about how i help myself. i mean, i totally drank the kool-aid with eckhart tolle, "the power of now" and "a new earth" and all. but that shit has oprah's stamp of approval. and it's pretty brilliant. it's all basically based in buddhist beliefs anyway, and second to kabbalah, buddhism is like the coolest faith you can claim.

(as bjork says, though, "i'm no fucking buddhist, but this is enlightenment.")

other than that brilliant little troll eckhart, though, it's only a smattering of this and that. i just want to see what people have to say about life and relationships and who we are and what the hell we're doing here. i feel like it's what i was supposed to do before leaving for australia, get myself into this headspace or this place where i'm open for exploring and changing and seeing life in a new way. well, that and read "eat, pray, love."

don't get me started on "eat, pray, love." really, don't. i fucking loved "eat, pray, love." okay, okay, fine, towards the end i was not as keen on it, once it got a little plotty, but i will forgive the love story with the brazilian guy and that business with the healing woman in bali, if only because she spent so much of the beginning of the book talking about having snotty cries on the bathroom floor. (see, there i go again.) and i think the portion of the book that takes place in india (the titular "pray") is really fantastic stuff, and a terrific portrait of a person truly coming to peace with their life, and not perfectly. she still cries on the floor a few times, she's largely awful at meditating for a while, and it takes a wildly spiritual experience to finally exorcise her ex-husband from her heart.

most of all, i love it because--how terribly self-absorbed, which, coincidentally, is a large criticism many have with this book--when jay handed it to me, ordering me to just ignore its popularity and read it, he insisted, "this woman is you." and not just, "ha ha, she's also really bad at being in intimate relationships with men." which she is. except when she talked about how crazy she would get the closer she got to a guy, i just sort of nodded and said, "yeah, right, that totally does happen!" but truly, i identified with elizabeth gilbert and her quest for soul-deep salvation 100%. i mean, i think it says a lot that by the third part of the book, she's courting a man in his 50's. even if i kind of wanted her to just be single and happy, i also thought, "wow, he sounds kind of hot." and i thought i was ashamed of self-help.

strangely enough, my mother called me one night, while i was actually eating dinner and reading the book, and i started telling her, "so, i'm reading this book, i think you'd really like it. jay said, and i quote, 'this woman is you.'"

my mom: "stop. i know exactly what book you're talking about. 'eat,pray,love'? oh my god, this woman is totally you."

we were at similar points in the book when we talked, and equally enthralled with the story. and it was kind of like one of those moments in your early adulthood, once the childishness of your teens and college years wears off, when you realize how you kind of would maybe hang out with your mom if she wasn't your mom. (that would be one of those "missing puzzle piece" enlightenments of the last month or two.)

that being said, my going to australia is not like my own personal version of "eat, pray, love." i'm afraid of getting fat, i don't like meditating, and...well, as for the love part, who knows. i've been willingly celibate for almost three months now, in a vow of chastity to accompany my overall self-purification and preparation for australia. (which i'm making sound more like preparation for a colonoscopy, yes, i know.) i'm not saying i'm going to land in melbourne and fuck the first baggage handler i can find (and how terribly, terribly ironic and symbolic that would be). i think it's really maybe a bit more like...well, "eat, pray, love." by the time she meets the brazilian and considers accepting his totally romantic and endearing attempts to woo her, it's not out of pent-up sexual frustration that she jumps into bed with him (she admits to masturbating her way through her great journey of self-discovery; pun totally welcomed) but because maybe it's time. she's learned how to love herself, maybe it's time to learn how to love someone else.

that's what the self-help books teach you.