24 July 2001 ~ Remnants of love-spells...

...Was cleaning yesterday for a few minutes, and found something absolutely bizarre.

I'm used to finding bizarre things around my apartment, really. Shirts that don't belong to me, books that don't belong to me, little screws and bolts and things that I have NEVER had any use for... Hell, once I found a beer glass from a bar I've never been to. Wires that don't go to anything; cigarettes that aren't my brand... It seems like EVERY time someone visits my house, they leave some remnant of themselves. Without getting into TOO much detail, it's frightening, the kinds of remnants people leave for me. The Calvin Klein boxers, for example... Anyone want to claim them?

THIS, however, the thing I found yesterday, was an entirely different breed of bizarre. This was not a remnant of someone else; this was a remnant of ME...

A little background: I've kept journals of various sorts since I was six. The early ones are boring as shit, but for awhile, I was really on this short-story kick. My short stories, naturally, were pretty shitty. As they told us in creative writing classes in college, children can be prodigies in music, in painting, and in acting and things, but there is no such thing as brilliant literary work by a six-year-old, because language is acquired through experience. Thus, the short stories were pretty crappy. I spent a lot of time, though, writing these ridiculous stories about this kid I knew named Jason; I had a huge crush on him, and I used to write stories about kissing him and things. Duh. Most of those found their way to the landfill.

Anyway, when I was eight -- and I do remember this VERY clearly -- I decided to write a story about my future husband. I was a hopeless romantic. It was really dreadful. See, I spent months, YEARS, daydreaming about falling in love, about people bringing me flowers, about long walks on beaches and kissing and so forth, but I never expected -- EVER -- to have boyfriends (or girlfriends, in case you were wondering) or a husband. I expected that I would spend my life alone. I couldn't even comprehend anything different. Yet I decided to write this story about my future husband, my soul-mate.

So I did something REALLY weird. It was one of the dumbest things I remember doing as a kid. I decided to do a love spell. (Bear in mind, my parents had raised my Catholic and I had no idea HOW to do a love spell...) So, whoop-dee-doo, I set up a little table on the top of my toybox: a doll-blanket with stars and diamonds on it, which I fancied was a magic carpet; a bunch of "magic" stones; about a dollar's worth of pennies stolen from my dad's desk; and a deck of playing cards. I had never heard of Tarot cards or anything, but I used to play these dumb games where I'd pretend the kings and the queens were getting married and stuff, and the cards with numbers on them were their possessions. Duh. Anyway, for purposes of this spell, I devised a complex system of numbers and letters and cards and coins. I honestly cannot remember the specifics of it, but it was something to the effect of: "if the first card I flip over is a face card, I'm going to toss a penny in the air, and if the penny lands heads-up, I'm going to flip over another card, and if THAT card is a face card, I'm going to get married, and then I'll flip TWO coins, and..."

It WAS pretty stupid. But then again, there are all sorts of ways people try to divine things like that. My mom taught me one, in which a woman peels an apple, careful not to break the peeling, and then tosses it, without looking, over her shoulder. The shape that the peeling makes on the floor is the first initial of the person you're going to marry. THAT is pretty dumb too, but at least that's an established tradition of some sort. Mine may not have been very customary or anything, but it was the same idea...

Well, the spell didn't work. Or it worked partially. Or something. I honestly don't remember; this was thirteen years ago. But after I'd kind of given up on the cards and pennies, I decided to put myself into a trance, and the first name that came to my mind would be the person I would marry.

Duh.

I'd been reading one of my mom's library books about hypnosis. For some reason, I thought I could hypnotize myself by placing refrigerator magnets on my temples and concentrating really hard. So, that's just what I did.

Duh.

Most of the experience is a little vague, but I remember very clearly wondering, "am I in a trance yet?" and, assuming that I was, tried to think of a first name.

The name I came up with grossed me out a little, because, at that time, I only knew one person with that name, and he was a gross little boy who, I suspect, is probably in prison by now for grand theft auto. Nevertheless, I recorded my findings in this little story...

...which I found yesterday...

I am absolutely NOT going to reprint that story here. It's dumb; it's REALLY dumb. Besides, one of the names might ring a bell.

I described the appearance of this person at some length: hair color, eye color, height... And I gave him a name. Oddly -- VERY oddly -- I know someone who looks very similar, whose pseudonym in this journal matches the name my love-spell came up with. When I first began this journal, I selected names almost at random. Out of phone books. Or through various rearrangements of letters. Some were natural-sounding choices. "Ken" got his name because he sort of looked like a Skipper doll with short hair, for example. But this name was a rather arbitrary choice that sort of worked, and I chose it well before the birth of Wet Cleanup, for purposes of -- you guessed it -- dumb short stories...

Weird.

Duh.

I really ought to chuck all those stupid journals and stories from when I was still too young to spell anything right.

I really ought to give up dumb superstitions and half-assed attempts at love spells. Especially ones that require refrigerator magnets.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I had a nice long chat with some girls at Lost Dog last night. They're the sort of friends you just sort of run into every now and again; the sort with whom you spend hours and hours discussing the most personal of matters, and then everybody goes home and forgets all about everything.

...But for a few hours -- we stayed until Lost Dog closed -- we giggled and told love stories and sex stories and drug stories, and it was nice. I told them about my love-spell at the age of eight, and they were delighted. I'm not so delighted. I think it's stupid. Weird, but stupid nonetheless. Still, it was neat when THEY were delighted.

* * * * * * * * * * *

About thirty seconds ago, I got the urge to clean my ear, which still had water in it from the shower. Upon removing the Q-tip, I freaked out because I thought there was blood all over it. Such is the problem with dyeing one's hair "Egyptian Plum" color. Gross!

Speaking of which, I made a huge mess in the bathroom and I have to go clean it up now.

Safety first,
~Helena*