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9:05 a.m. - 2010-10-13
Ghosts
I love ghosts. Ghosts have a reputation for being unpredictable. I think that maybe applies to poltergeists or michievous sprites with nothing better to do. But ghosts, real ghosts, have gravitas. They are downright shy and do not go where they are not wanted. I know, because I have been courting ghosts my whole life. When I was five, I pushed a small doll stroller up and down Orange Drive in Hollywood. Instead of one of my many dolls or stuffed animals, inside, under a pretty receiving blanket, was an 8 x 10 black and white of me as a baby. As crazy as that sounds, it is true. A bonafide ghost in a stroller. Strangers, no doubt, pitied me. No doll. But I preferred my ghost. When I was just a little older, I would spend hours creating little kindergarten exercises. Then I would spend hours pretending I was back in kindergarten, trying to figure out "which of these is not like the others". I have spent my life grounding myself with my rear view mirror. Backwards holds no anxiety. No "what if's?" Backwards may be sad and disappointing and poignant and even angry. But never scary. Never anxious. I have a habit of wanting to be where I am not. Later, when I am somewhere else, I want to be where I didn't want to be because I wanted to be where I no longer was. When I was an English major, I hung out in front of the Psychology building. When I was a Psychology major, I would sit in the grass outside the English building, trading poetry with a delicate poet with wire rimmed glasses. I tend to devalue what (or who) wants me. I tend to idealize what (or who) rejects me. Like they somehow have that missing piece that explains it all. I've gotten better. In one area, I actually like to be where I am and that is at work. I love what I do. Everywhere else, including home, I want to be where I am not. I cannot stay at home. Cannot. I would rather be at the bookstore or at the record store or at Jack-in-the-Box, but not at home. I gravitate to Hollywood on Sundays. Ghosts woo me back. I have fried tacos at Astro Burger and then haunt the Fairfax High flea market for ghosts (you can't have too many)! I just found a suede coat just like one I had in the 70's, with shearling around the bottom and down the middle and around the sleeves. So many ghosts to keep me warm. I wrap myself in them. They follow me home and I beg to keep them. In my heart live many ghosts. Ghosts of lovers past, friends past, times past. I am Proust in drag. Ghosts can pick me out of a crowd. I am a ghost magnet. I live life in reverse. Right now, I am accumulating belongings I used to own, a tiny stuffed Steiff "Lamby" that rescued my broken heart on that horrible first honeymoon at barely eighteen. Ghosts console me. Ghosts understand me. Ghosts are the after-image, tangibly misty.

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