The beast must be fed, and yet, every time it’s fed, it gets bigger… and hungrier…
In this case, the beast in question is my appetite for mental simulation.
For as long as I can remember, I craved mental stimulation above nearly everything else. Even as a tiny child, I wanted food for mu mind far more than I ever wanted food for my face.
If forced to choose between a good book and a Skor bar, I would have chosen the book without even thinking about it.
After all, as much as I loved Skor, that would only please me for the short time it took to eat it. The book would entertain me for hours.
This hard focus on mental stimulation explains why I never played with toys. Toys don’t DO anything. They don’t provide any mental stimulation at all. They’re just… things.
Like I have said here before, the idea of using toys as part of a play-acting scenario where I make up stories as I go would never have occurred to me.
In fact, I only know that’s how normal kids play with toys because that’s how they play with toys on television.
Ah, television. My one true childhood friend. Channel upon channel of mental stimulation that I could enjoy all by myself, without having to bother anyone, and without having to compete for someone’s attention.
Thus began my slightly parasocial relationship with sitcoms. I never tried to call up Doctor Huxtable or sent Christmas cards to Alex P. Keaton, but it was the warmth and the feeling of family that drew me to the sitcoms I loved.
And that’s “family” as in chosen family, whether they are related to you or not.
Sure, I loved the comedy. I have always loved comedy. But it was the warmth that kept me coming back to the ones I loved and it was the shows with the big warm hearts to go with the wit and sarcasm that became my all time favorites.
Come to think of it, there’s a certain warmth in game shows too, which were another of my staple. It’s a radically different kind of warmth from the sitcom kind, but part of the formula of a successful game show is a host who can exude the kind of warmth and charisma that puts both the contestants and the people at home at ease.
No wonder I liked Chuck Woolery so much back then.
So I suppose that even back then, what I wanted was not just mental stimulation but warmth. Emotional warmth.
Even back then, I was a lonely little fox lost in the cold, looking for a home.
It’s not like I ever felt at home in the home I grew up in. The best I could say was that it was, technically, the place where I felt the least alienated.
But I was never really part of my so-called “family” at all.
Maybe I really am an alien.
Take me to your video games, Earthling!
More after the break.
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Art is how a culture talks to itself.
On being bigger
I have a strong urge to expand.
Not physically, of course. God no. If anything, I need to get smaller by like 80 pounds, give or take, of excess adipose tissue.
Otherwise known as “body fat”.
No, I want to expand my soul and my spirit. I want to grown to encompass all the things that my narrowly construed version of “logic” (ha!) has blinded me to all these years.
Things like joy and hope and nature and love and deep emotional truths and the kind of wisdom of the heart that reall matters and all the rest of the real world outside my sordid little cell block of an existence.
Actually, it’s worse than a cell block. In prison I would at least get sex.
Hell, I would probably eat better too.
I wonder if I qualify for Meals On Wheels. That would at least get me one decent meal a day, even if it’s hospital food.
I had perfect blood sugar when I was in the hospital this time last year.
That’s because I was getting three nutritionist approved meals plus one or two snacks a day. Clearly there is something terribly wrong about my home diet.
But I can’t imagine how I could eat like that at home. It’s getting to the point where just getting to the kitchen to grab a few things and come back is a trial for me. My legs are screaming at me when I sit back down, and that is WITH the walker and without my even hanging around in the kitchen for very long.
Under those circumstances, how the heck would I eat better?
Maybe I should invest in some TV dinners. (Do they still call them that? Probably not.)
Assuming they don’t take long to nuke, that might get me a decent meal a day.
Or I could revisit the idea of a microwave in my room. Or hell, try to figure out some way I can sit down in the kitchen.
Some sort of folding chair or stool I can deploy when I need it then stow it away so it’s not in everybody’s way when I don’t need it.
Sounds potentially doable. But it would, of course, have to be sturdy. Otherwise, my elephantine bulk will destroy it.
Being able to cook sitting down is out of the question because our counters and stovetops are far too high. Any stool tall enough to allow me to cook would be too tall to sit on safely.
But having a place to sit and rest in the kitchen would allow me to cook in short bursts of activity, and maybe make some decent food for myself.
It’s either that or order in for every supper, and nobody can afford THAT.
Though, in my case, not for lack of trying.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.