chapter five.

the boyfriend dropped by last night (i told you already: with me, everything happens last night, even if it's a future event, even if it's a sun rise). that was fun. i mean, that was distracting. somehow he knows how to make my brain stop on its spiral death trap of over heating. not all the time, but most of the time. it's nice to have somebody with whom i can be in neutral gear, who won't judge me too much if i'm acting crazy or boring, who can bring me down in the first instance and perk me up in the second. he brought echinacea tea because i'm getting a cold. isn't that sweet? he's trying to cure me with his fake hippie medicine! bah, i got to make fun of him for that, but i still took the tea. i like that he's all lovey-dovey hippie-like, all herbal and bio and healthy. i like that he can cook yummy stuff, but he won't complain if i feed him what i cook... er- order. i'm not too sure why such a new age health freak is doing with me, but it's been a few years so i've stopped pondering the subject too often. and he got rather annoyed at me for bringing that up every week, so i said good enough and i decided i meant it. i think he'd just get bored with a hippie girl. they'd go to live shows and lie on the grass and smoke... grass, they'd make beed necklaces and spawn long haired easy going children with vague eyes, they'd eat bread that tastes like dry all bran cereal, they'd home school and go camping all summer, they'd have a llama and a sheep. well bravo. i guess if that's what he wanted, he would have gone for it. instead, i'm guessing he likes how different i am from him. he's all about caring, and i'm all about not. he's organized and sweet and i'm sure you could eat off his colon. i'm the kind that shrugs a lot. where did i put my keys? i know where. but i don't care enough to go get them so i'll just stay here instead. in a way, that makes me a great girlfriend: he gets here, tired from long hours at work, and he apologizes that he doesn't have the energy to take me out to dinner like he said he would. i shrug. i didn't feel like getting dressed anyway. he smiles. see how easy things can be?

i think i could be in a relationship with most men. most women too i guess. as long as they get me, don't force me to do crap, don't want to change anything about me. i could be with anybody who likes me the way i like me, the way i am. looking for amibitious cheerleader? third door to your left. famous intellectuals with long list of prizes? fourth door to your right. drama queens? sorry, we're just out, the last one took a wrong turn and plunged from the roof. last i heard she was a speck of dust on a windshield down below.

i'm not that hard to handle. i demand a huge amount of respect, and privacy and independance. but i offer the same. so it doesn't really matter what kind of person i'm with - they could be into bungee jumping (do people still do that? it was such a ubiquitous term a few years ago, and now it's become a metaphor more than a reality, seems to me... but then again, i don't go out looking for places that offer it or reports from suicidal near misses. i get my own kicks my own way, and that usually doesn't involve oversized elastic bands... then again...) and bank robberies (if they were good at it... i'm not the patient kind - you go to jail, you say bye bye honey), it wouldn't really make a difference to me. hell, i think i could even date a businessman. although the suit and tie would probably make me laugh every time i saw them. i don't understand the idea of ties. i'm not sure who does. they look stupid, they - from what every man i've ever met has told me - feel terrible, they have no use, and they're too often ugly. it really puzzles me to see that ties have survived evolution. or tie wearers for that matter.

i can go on and on about things i don’t like. hell, i’ll give you a sample in a little while. but one thing i really really enjoy is thinking about hooloovoos. what is a hooloovoo, you ask? ah, now that’s a good question. and there is a simple answer: a hooloovoo is a super intelligent shade of the colour blue. simple. and so smart. because obviously blue is super intelligent. isn’t it? i usually don’t have to confess this, because to people who know or even meet me it is as obvious as the sun in the sky, but i love blue. oh, actually it has gone beyond love. beyond adoration and beyond devotion. i usually don’t spend any money on anything that is not blue. why bother? (unfortunately most money is not blue…) my entire wardrobe (granted i am no fashion crazy girly girl) is made up only of blue items. it’s something i started working on at least ten years ago, fed up with having to figure out what to wear in the morning, tired of getting dressed in the dark because my eyes want to pretend they’re still sleeping for a few more minutes, only to realize later that i was wearing mismatched items and looked like an actual scarecrow. i mean something that would actually scare crows, not clothes stuck on a stick and filled with hay. i like to simplify what i can, and simplifying my clothes has been good. now i can grope and grab anything in the not quite dirty enough for laundry pile, or pull on what’s hanging in the closet, and know that i’ll be wearing shades of blue, and shades of blue all work together, and i need not give this any other thought until i get undressed and have to decide what goes in the aforementioned pile and what goes in the slightly closer to the washing machine pile. and it goes beyond clothes. i had to paint my walls here white, because if i painted them blue as i wished, i’d probably bump into everything and anything. because both the everything and the anything are, well, blue. desks, chairs, sofas, fridge, dishes, tv. i love blue. i want my life to be as blue as the universe should be. and i’ve got the feeling that every time i get rid of something that is not blue and replace it by something blue, i get a little closer to the hooloovoo. blue is a way of life, man. blue is everything. blue is one of the only truths i know. blue is one of the only obsessions i have now, that i’ve had all my life. like i was born in a vacuum where blue was missing, and i have to spend my life filling the blue void. explain it as you will – i know i don’t – but i have blue in my gut.

now, as for things that i don’t like. oh boy. no. you know what? i’ll save that for another day. right now i don’t know if it’s the red wine or the sex i had during the night, but i feel mellow in my happily smooth mood. not a mood i encounter very often, so i’ll coast on it for a while. i’m all for exploring my dark side and whatever, but coasting on yummy is not something i spit on. and i must say the boyfriend is yummy. who knew that someone could know how to cook tofu properly *and* know how to make me reach new orgasmic heights?

right now (last night if you prefer) i’m sitting on a red towel. the only non blue towel in the house. it’s the perfect towel to drip on, any day of the month. and towels are the best items to drip on. i enjoy that part, the day after sex, when i’m still dripping with sperm, slowly and inconstantly for a few hours. i don’t take showers on those mornings: i revel in the smell of sex. i’m not much of a traveler, but if i was to give advice to anyone on their way anywhere, i’d say to bring a towel. a red one if you’re a woman. a red towel means never having to say no to any sex act humanly possible. and that’s what i called being prepared.

this has nothing to do with anything, but i thought of it. at one point i got my shoes stolen. i went to a friend’s house, and she had a cousin for a roommate (i’ve met quite a few people who have done that and it has always ended in disaster – having a friend for a roommate is risky enough, and you often end up without a friend or a place to stay, but usually, you can’t manage to get rid of family – there should be a guide out there for stupid (i.e. every) teenagers, to at least give them a chance to avoid that kind of stupid pitfalls). i was chatting with my friend (back then chatting meant actual talking back and forth, nothing to do with avatars and perverts – well, unless you included a pervert, voluntarily or not, in your chat) in her living room. i remember it had an old fireplace, an unusable fireplace that for some reason had never been taken out. instead, the landlords had had the brilliant idea of covering the hearth with a light grill. on the side, there was a light switch. i flicked it (i don’t know if you can resist a light switch on the middle of a wall, where it appears unlikely and lost, but i certainly can’t). it activated a sickly red light bulb, stuck by itself in the hearth! i never understood fake or gas fireplaces, but that beat them all!

anyway i was chatting with my friend about this and that (no, actually we were discussing my then soon to be ex-boyfriend, i was bawling and she was telling me what an asshole he was and why i was so much better than him and worth so much more and how i had to get back on top and kick him out and forget him, and of course i was defending him and clinging to the idea of a great couple that we really never impersonated but oh i so wished it would have happened. we were just being girlfriends. typical girlfriends. her cousin of a roommate came in, said hello i’m leaving for the weekend just picking up my stuff and crap and then i’m on my way. i went back to my whining, and we turned back to our hot tea (or was it booze? i don’t know – both are likely… let’s settle for an irish coffee (i’ll settle for an irish coffee but you know what i really need). the cousin took what she wanted, needed, said goodbye and left and we completely forgot about her. well, as much as we could. things were not all sane in the kingdom of denmark, and my friend was going nuts over her cousin's weirdness, from vacuuming for twenty-four hours straight (including outside the windows, below zero temperature or no), to displaying books about strange, rare and gross diseases and afflictions that she believed she had or could have or should have - nobody was certain, all over the apartment. she also put everything that belonged to my friend back in her room because i wasn't nice enough, expensive enough, designer-like enough. but whatever, like i said, you decide to live with family, you deal with your genetic shit.

it's only a few hours later, when i was on my way home, that i realised my shoes were missing. i must admit that i often say my stuff has vanished, and that usually i find it again, but this time i wasn't home, so i knew i hadn't put the shoes in some remote closet where only i could find them. no, i'd left them there, on the little carpet in front (but inside) of the door. i can be weird sometimes, but i can also behave, and i do understand the non verbalized rules of common curtesy and use. shoes go on carpet next to door. even i can understand that. well, my shoes were gone. and it took a while, but we retraced our evening and recalled the wild card of a cousin. and true enough, she had taken my shoes. shoenapping! i was shoeless and away from home. which wasn't such a drama. i just took a pair of my friend's shoes and walked on the heels, tucked under my heels. but it was a surreal moments, and as such, i guess i'll always somewhat cherish it.
another "thing" i like is fish. i have blue fish, that swim above blue rocks. they keep me busy. ha! not, actually quite the contrary. they keep my mind from busying itself with crappy thoughts and guilt and revenge plans. i stare at them and i stare and stare and become a fish zombie, and i bet my blood pressure in those moments goes back to what it shoud be. a song? why not.

fish wiggle
fish splash
fish live in water
at the bottom of the lake
they go flic flac
on their belly and on their back
in the river bed
there is no light
the fish see clearly in water
in the immense river
all the fish dance
and pass under the boats
in the green sea
they take a quick dip
oh yeah that's good weather
fish wiggle
fish splash
fish live in water

i thought of something (when? last night, of course!). i’m thinking i should start my own religion. i have what it takes: a name for me (i.e. the divinity and prophet), which is the great hooloovoo, a message i would like to propagate to the uneducated unenlightened masses (blue is the best – not just color but concept, warmth, and overall goal to achieve – oh, and also, the great hooloovoo should be revered above all else), greed, time and i like to make up nonsensical songs and jingles. oh, and also, i don’t like people all that much. i think i can make a good case for myself as a new found, reborn religious figure, deity and leader. i’ll be nice, and ask only for five percent of my members’ income. although the more i think of it, the clearer it becomes: cults need to ask for a lot of money, because as a rule the people they draw in are not earning millions… and what am i going to do with a tiny fraction of my disciples’ minimum wages? i’ll either raise the price or send them to bring back more sheep to heal and enlighten. perhaps they’d start at twenty percent of their salary, dropping five percent for each new recruit they bring who joins and starts at twenty… this is all too easy! i knew i had a mastermind, but i just hadn’t found my (religious) calling… until now!

now i’ll need to focus on a costume (blue, of course). i’m thinking the old long robe and long cape can never be overdone. with a hood to cover my face. or should i have a crown, set with sapphires, instead? and we will serve blueberries and drink blueberry sacrificial wine. my devotees will wear jeans and have blue jays as pets and will dye their hair blue in my honor. the membership kit will come with blue contact lenses and a vial of methylene blue to dye their skin for special ceremonies. somehow a football fan painted face does not appeal as much to me. or maybe it’s the fat belly, frostbit skin and hollering that i associate with that image that turn me off? nevertheless, i’ll go for the dying. that way i can take my followers for a swim in some blue big water.

you know what though? that sounds like a lot of work. planning and reaching out and stuff… it’s just not for me. i refuse to even think of what the boyfriend would say. not that i listen to him whenever he dares disagree with me, but still, that likely would be more than he could handle. no, what i need before i get any further on this road, is a good, faithful, subservient and efficient lieutenant. we’ll call him or her a minister.

i’d need a good mystery. i’ll base it on the number five. ooh, i should have five hooloovoo associates. or four, plus me. i’ll be the center and they can be the corners of my blue square. perhaps i can steal – er – modify a few hymns i was forced to learn in my youth? i’ll start with catholic crap, and find my way to remoter (possibly more interesting lyrics).

take this bread, great hooloovoo, take this bread
may this bread become your body
may this bread become your body.

take this wine, great hooloovoo, take this wine
may this wine become your blood
may this wine become your blood.

hmmm. that’s not perfect. first, the idea of blue bread is not very appealing. and perhaps transubstantiation is something to leave to more experienced self-proclaimed gurus? i like the bit about the wine, though. it’s easy to turn my blood into wine, i just need a lot of wine…perhaps i could have a scientific division, that investigates how best to transform wine into blood and vice versa. it sounds cryptic and useless enough for cult devotees to open wide their empty eyes and raise their heads high and gasp into the blue light with the certainty that something, they don’t know what, but something, something wonderful is about to happen, and it is all because of the great hooloovoo’s endeavor. yeah, i like that.

hi, i’m tim choate, who played zathras on babylon 5. i’m dead, and i approved this chapter.