An Ode to Bob Dylan and the Fat Haynes Guy in the Tuxedo
Why is it that when I have the most to do is, I think of all of these deep, soul searching things to discuss?
Just as I discussed death yesterday, today I will discuss life and love, a subject that, if you think about it, is much scarier than death ever thought of being. There is no real choice in death, yet in life, you are inundated with choice after choice, and as soon as you think you have made one, you are forced to reevaluate it. It can be maddening.
Case in point: yesterday this guy who I have two classes with does his presentation in Southern Writers about the blues. It is breathtaking. I mean, the sheer passion that he used in talking about this subject was addictive and just so totally delicious that I felt I could just sit there all day with him talking and me listening with a strange look on my face. He played music, and was knowledgeable, and then (gasp, gasp, faint) he brings out his Fender strat and demonstrates how to play a blues cord. Stick a fork in me guys, I was through. I mean, nothing tickles me more than a man with a guitar. Seriously. If Osama Bin Laden had one and came to me at the right time, he could (possibly) get some play. So I stare and smile and try not to look like I am obsessing over this guy and that I have at least some intelligent thing to say, something that does not include the words "wow" or "dear God" or "Baby, come and see me sometime." It is hard.
Then I leave class and drive home. On my way there, as if to add to my questioning, I am listening to Bob Dylan. "Tangled Up in Blue" comes on, which is an awesome song, and the whole time I'm thinking, "What if ole Bob is right? What if the meaning of life lies not in academia and War and Peace, but rather in love and spontaneity (I know that is not spelled right) and reading Italian poetry by the light of a topless bar?" That's when I realize that it's not this random guy that I think is cool, rather, it's what he stands for. There is a certain lawlessness in this guy, a feeling that he could be your Dean Moriarty if you so desired, that you could wake up in a strange Western hotel room with him and have no clue about anything but what kind of beer you smell on his breath. But he's also blazingly smart, which is definitely cool. It's all very Beat, I guess.
I come home and make a lovely Greek dinner for my lovely boyfriend, and then we go to Target and argue over money. This is definitely not what I need. It feels suffocating and just so inherently wrong. As I finish my Pope paper, I watch him sleep and feel no romantic love, just a hatred for the fact that he didn't load this dishwasher after dinner, and now I'm going to have to do it.
And then this morning I wake up and look over at him. There he is, bathed in the blue light of the dawn, and it's magical. Enchanting. Just to see him there, looking too angelic for me, yet somehow just right. It's weird, but it feels good, like something out of a Kubrick film. I watch him sleep and just feel suddenly that I want him to be there forever, just laying beside me, wearing the scant light like a blanket. I can't help but to kiss his forehead, where it is soft and smooth. He keeps sleeping, and I go back to sleep, feeling warm and perfect.
So this is my question. Is this how you know? Are these moments what tell you that you are doing something right, or is there something else, something that would eradicate all the Kerouac daydreams from my head, that I'm just not getting? Am I ok? Will I wake up someday, damning myself for falling for the dawn and the comfort, wishing that I had driven across the country armed with only my books and a loving, beer drinking, musician? Will I ever find myself married to some guy who I would have made fun of at 21, some guy like that fat guy in the tuxedo on all the Haynes commercials? Is there any way to know the future, any way to tell if what you are doing is right or wrong? No. No there's not. And I think that's the only sure thing in this world. That you will never know.
And on that note, I will retire. I must go to class and be intelligent and consider a world without love, a world full of the dry husks of academia, with a spattering of politics in truth folded in like a chocolate stripe in a vanilla cake batter. Ho hum. To Pope.
Just as I discussed death yesterday, today I will discuss life and love, a subject that, if you think about it, is much scarier than death ever thought of being. There is no real choice in death, yet in life, you are inundated with choice after choice, and as soon as you think you have made one, you are forced to reevaluate it. It can be maddening.
Case in point: yesterday this guy who I have two classes with does his presentation in Southern Writers about the blues. It is breathtaking. I mean, the sheer passion that he used in talking about this subject was addictive and just so totally delicious that I felt I could just sit there all day with him talking and me listening with a strange look on my face. He played music, and was knowledgeable, and then (gasp, gasp, faint) he brings out his Fender strat and demonstrates how to play a blues cord. Stick a fork in me guys, I was through. I mean, nothing tickles me more than a man with a guitar. Seriously. If Osama Bin Laden had one and came to me at the right time, he could (possibly) get some play. So I stare and smile and try not to look like I am obsessing over this guy and that I have at least some intelligent thing to say, something that does not include the words "wow" or "dear God" or "Baby, come and see me sometime." It is hard.
Then I leave class and drive home. On my way there, as if to add to my questioning, I am listening to Bob Dylan. "Tangled Up in Blue" comes on, which is an awesome song, and the whole time I'm thinking, "What if ole Bob is right? What if the meaning of life lies not in academia and War and Peace, but rather in love and spontaneity (I know that is not spelled right) and reading Italian poetry by the light of a topless bar?" That's when I realize that it's not this random guy that I think is cool, rather, it's what he stands for. There is a certain lawlessness in this guy, a feeling that he could be your Dean Moriarty if you so desired, that you could wake up in a strange Western hotel room with him and have no clue about anything but what kind of beer you smell on his breath. But he's also blazingly smart, which is definitely cool. It's all very Beat, I guess.
I come home and make a lovely Greek dinner for my lovely boyfriend, and then we go to Target and argue over money. This is definitely not what I need. It feels suffocating and just so inherently wrong. As I finish my Pope paper, I watch him sleep and feel no romantic love, just a hatred for the fact that he didn't load this dishwasher after dinner, and now I'm going to have to do it.
And then this morning I wake up and look over at him. There he is, bathed in the blue light of the dawn, and it's magical. Enchanting. Just to see him there, looking too angelic for me, yet somehow just right. It's weird, but it feels good, like something out of a Kubrick film. I watch him sleep and just feel suddenly that I want him to be there forever, just laying beside me, wearing the scant light like a blanket. I can't help but to kiss his forehead, where it is soft and smooth. He keeps sleeping, and I go back to sleep, feeling warm and perfect.
So this is my question. Is this how you know? Are these moments what tell you that you are doing something right, or is there something else, something that would eradicate all the Kerouac daydreams from my head, that I'm just not getting? Am I ok? Will I wake up someday, damning myself for falling for the dawn and the comfort, wishing that I had driven across the country armed with only my books and a loving, beer drinking, musician? Will I ever find myself married to some guy who I would have made fun of at 21, some guy like that fat guy in the tuxedo on all the Haynes commercials? Is there any way to know the future, any way to tell if what you are doing is right or wrong? No. No there's not. And I think that's the only sure thing in this world. That you will never know.
And on that note, I will retire. I must go to class and be intelligent and consider a world without love, a world full of the dry husks of academia, with a spattering of politics in truth folded in like a chocolate stripe in a vanilla cake batter. Ho hum. To Pope.
posted by Southern Belle at 11:19 AM
1 Comments:
Everything but the midget. Sound like a party. Keep blogging.
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