nevermore_66

I find happiness in voodoo doll smiles.

Sometimes, when I'm blue, I look back at characters I've written. The good ones, learn to live on their own, without me. They breath and grow and sometimes, you get that strange satisfaction of realizing the character you created is wiser than you.

A year ago, I wrote a series of three monologues for an actress friend of mine about three eccentric women, strangers, yet connected: Clara (a young woman who sneaks into funerals to meet people and get a free bite to eat), Nyx (a sort of gothy tatoo artist), and Candy (a psychic sex line operator). The monologues delt with everything from why funeral food tastes best, to why freedom smells like chocolate, to dildos named Bob, to why Oprah is the Queen of the Gothic ideal.

Candy became one of those characters mentioned above. She's sexy, ditzy in a pleasant way, and (without really trying) wiser than I. She, all on her own, said things like: The line between slutty and sensual is as thin as self-esteem and twice as protective as latex.

When asked how she can be so happy in the world we live in, she said:

But I do find hope, Richard.

I see the words FUCK YOU scratched on the stall walls of a truck-stop womens room, and I find hope that someone would have that kind of omnipotent optimism, to scratch such a personal message in such a random place, and know, know it will reach the proper recipient.

Writing on the stalls, Richard, writing on the stalls.

I find hope when I divine answers from tea leaves and crystals, when I read the funnies during late breakfasts, and when I read possible futures in my alphabet soup.

I find happiness in voodoo doll smiles.

I know that trauma spelled backwards is amuart, and that somehow makes me feel better.