My latest self-preservation technique is singing the opening lines to “Little Life” all hours of the day. Folding my laundry (that I am not fully convinced was actually cleaned thanks to my shared-unit washer from the 70s). I think I like this little life. Particularly difficult douching session. I think I like this little life. Frying a partially frozen egg from my faulty refrigerator. I think I like this little life.
This is my version of the motivational sticky note on a mirror. Sort of my Barbra Streisand looking over her cheetah print fur collar saying “Hello Gorgeous.” It’s never been clear to me how much this type of thing is actually believed by the speaker and how much is the work of convincing. *Delusion: Convince yourself. I’ve always been weary of self-help mantras like this. I’ve always thought that “speaking it into existence,” often feels a lot more like lying to yourself until you’re too exhausted to put up a fight any longer. If this kind of self-hypnosis works for you then all the power to you, but I don’t see much use in pretending everything is alright.
I recently visited my family’s home for the holidays, or as it is more commonly called: an interesting look into the backwoods of NH. And what a different world it is. The most striking difference I found myself encumbered by was just how dark New Hampshire winter truly gets. Surely this is a new development. I was raised in those Granite State forests, I think I would remember if the advent of electricity hadn’t made it to the state.
Much has been said about this already, we all know how SAD rots my little brain from the inside out like an extremely overworked worm. But humor me for one more statement on the condition of sunlessness found only in the South of the North. New Hampshire winters are somehow always Januaries and never Decembers. New Hampshire winters are having your boot caught in the snow and then trying to get said foot back in, just to get snow all up the leg of your pants. New Hampshire winters are bleak and unforgiving, they make you forget what laughing feels like, they remind you why drugs were invented.
When it’s dark like that, is there anything else one can do than drive to a big empty parking lot in the shopping district of your hometown? Being alone with your thoughts and the radio in the parking lot of an Ocean State Job Lots is a rite of passage for anyone who is homo for the holidays. That’s one good thing that comes from being home, listening to the radio again. It’s so quaint. I, along with the other 18 year olds in my age demographic, had entirely shifted my own media consumption to streamers and internet-based platforms, and had largely forgotten the far-off relic of radio station programming. As a result, my ads are highly personalized— effectively one IBS commercial to every five PreP commercials. (Which honestly feels like a pretty good distillation of me as a person.)
The ads one hears in your father’s 2013 Honda Civic, are different, and are enough to make a grown man question his own relationship with God. Also known as a Tuesday night. (Hello!) There’s a lot more skit-based comedy in these 20-second advertisements, much more than I was expecting. Likewise, there are a lot of, shall we say, bold accent choices being made. Remember, this is New Hampshire, so sort of just pick which racial epithets you’d expect to see characterized and then attach that to like a Mattress Firm or something. There were also no less than three separate hypnotist conferences being promoted. Most interestingly, they all claimed to hypnotize you into losing weight.
I had a cousin who used to have these insane, gnarly, hateful Plantar warts. Just really despicable stuff, the kind of feet that are more dead than alive. Something you’d see in a Courage the Cowardly Dog cutaway. (Sorry to my ugly feet community, open-toed shoes really do rock, and you ARE missing out.) She had tried everything from freezing with Dr. Scholl’s to topical steroids. The only thing that worked was going to a hypnotist. I can’t rationalize what happened there, did she just will off her warts? Is that something you could do? I was leaning forward so far in my driver’s seat listening to the commercial that my head was nearly bumping the steering wheel.
I pictured hundreds of New Hampshire moms crowded into a convention center, Dunks in hand, listening to this hypnotist (I envision him to look like Jordan from the House of Jordan’s Furniture) as he worked his magic. Does everyone lose the same amount of weight? Is there a tier system, is it like gem packs in a match-3 game, can you purchase upgrades? I think if I were to sign up for this kind of thing, not that I ever would, at least not without a Groupon of 20% or more, I would only want to lose 20-lbs. That feels appropriate. After watching the 20-lb body fat vest video from Nasco I am actually certain that all my problems would be solved if I could hang my fat up in the closet for a little bit.
Then I am reminded that I am a non-believer. A skeptic. The type of person who always has something to say—not necessarily the dream candidate for shadow work or hypnotism. My greatest hope is to one day get drafted for a cult, it doesn’t even need to be one of the sex ones, it could be, but it doesn’t need to be. I’m willing to compromise. Still, deep down I know that I am too much of a loudmouth to make it past even the preliminary screenings. Which is a shame, because I think I would really excel at the soup cans.
So what’s left? How can I turn my brain off and let someone else make the decisions for a little bit? That’s the goal after all. I just don’t know if I’m the person best suited to chaperone my own life. Surely there’s someone out there with a more appropriate set of skills, maybe someone who isn’t at risk of burning a paper plate in the microwave at least.
In the meantime, I’ve found that taking one and a half edibles is the exact sweet spot where I still feel like a character from Sailor Moon but not exactly like I am in a cartoon per say, if that makes sense. (And yes, I realize there’s a difference between cartoons and anime, thank you very much.) It’s nice to feel like a leggy crime fighter with amazing yellow hair, and even better to be someone with a purpose.
In the warm glow that can only come from a lemon meringue pie edible (listen, it was the only one on sale at the dispensary) I humor my friends and say to myself all manner of pick-me-ups in the mirror. You are lovely. You are worthy. Your life will get better. And sometimes, when I can get the cynical part of mind quiet enough, this hypnotism works.