I had a dream a few nights ago that involved motorcycles with horses on them, and the horses had fur like bristly pigs, and you had to ride the horse in order to ride the motorcycle. But more importantly, the dream included a very serious conversation with my friends about my thoughts of suicide. They demanded explanations, and I provided lies.

Now, in waking times, I can't say that I've exactly had thoughts of suicide. Not unless you count reading (and attempting to memorize) the poem Resume, which I admit I have engaged myself with of late. But no self-murderous thoughts, really. In my dream, though (and in my memory) the thoughts are really a lot less of a bother than the constant justification you must provide if you dare confess them to anyone. Really, the same goes for anything offensive and destructive to the social fabric in which you had envelopped yourself.

I believe sometimes that no actions towards yourself are half as painful as the kind of social approbation for which you must submit afterwards. And you must submit yourself, too, because we are social creatures, we require community (even imaginary ones) to function. While dead bodies make a fine raft, live humans are endlessly useful and even if you hate them something awful, you usually need them at some point in your life.

You have to say the right things, though, or it just becomes even more painful. You learn how to say the right, usually self effacing things, or you are punished. And perhaps I've a crusty and dessicated soul, but I have thought for many months now that suicide is far more destructive to the community left behind than to the individual. It's not that I really blame people for having these reactions. After all, the individual is dead and feels nothing anymore, but the community has to convince everyone else that they are not at fault.

Take my family. My family has never recovered from a suicide. I assume my Uncle is very comfortable wherever he lies, but my family is constantly restless, kicking at corners and renting their hair thirty years after the fact.

I generally thought I was an honest person, but I can think of many instances when I have tried to say what people wanted (even needed) to hear just so that I would no longer have to submit myself to any of their analyses.

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I have been doing nothing but sleeping. I told my friend Chris this - that I'd been sleeping 22 hours a day without thinking of it - and said that I must be depressed.

"Sleeping all the time doesn't mean you're depressed."

"No? Then what can it be? Maybe it's because I'm pregnant with alien babies and they're going to burst out of my belly at any moment!"

"Haahahaa.... er."

2003-05-11, Alien pregnancies and crazy motorcycles

before / after

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