He laughed like an irresponsible foetus.

One of the most tiring, allow-me-to-be-asuck-this-revolver conversation topics that could possibly ever be presented is the whole "LOOK AT ME I am Soooo Unique! Like a snowflake that has fallen on the nose of a virgin unicorn on Leap Year while it is being ridden by a winged mermaid! So Special!" sort of thing. However, this is MY BLOG and you all will SHUT THE HELL UP AND READ IF YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU

Recently I was talking with one of my favorite persons and she mentioned that she was reading a book about famine in China during the Great Leap Forward. For "fun." My pulse quickened: could it be that someone else out there was also consuming non-fiction that would make the rest of the populace long for the sweet embrace of the Great Dirt Nap? Could it be that I could have rational discussions with someone about the stark beauty of dark things without hearing "oh, that's so depressing?" Also, and perhaps most critical: WAS I TURNING INTO THAT FREAK KID WITH THE BUG-EYES FROM AMERICAN BEAUTY 

I don't know if these will help in making up YOUR mind about me, but I present:   

{A TOTALLY TRUE CONVERSATION COMING UP RIGHT HERE} 

The Lion: So, we're putting on a pretty great performance soon. 

Me: Sweet. 

The Lion: Just think: an enchanted evening of Baroque music. 

Me: Uh-huh. 

The Lion: It's being performed in A Large City Which is Only an Hour From Here.

Me: *yawn*

The Lion: So, do you wanna come? (wags the area which would have been a tail were we possessed of them) 

Me: I dunno. I mean, I may have...the things. Yes, the things. 

The Lion: I was saving this for last: the church where this is being performed is the home to the glassed-in ossuaries of two Roman martyrs. Like, you can see their skeletons. 

Me: I AM TOTALLY THERE DUDE

{SOME, UH, NOW SOME SCENARIOS}

  

Scenario 1: 

You are walking through a verdant, springtime meadow. Butterflies alight delicately on dewy blooms. Nearby, a small brook wends its way lazily through a small copse of trees, where perhaps a shy doe and her fawns drink. The sky is blue and birdsong; the ground is Gaea and greenness. What is going through your mind? 

a) I have discovered earthly paradise.  

b) Perhaps I am now deceased and I have come to a place of Eternal Reward. 

c) I wonder if those tight clumps of blooms are being nourished by human remains, perhaps as a result of this field having been the site of a battle. 

Scenario 2: 

You go to the ocean. As soon as you get out of your car, your mouth and nose are filled with the briny tang of the deep. A cacophony of gulls, their gullets filled with marine invertebrates, echoes across a foggy slip and tumbles into your awaiting ears. You begin to walk along where the brine kisses the earth - slowly at first, and then with greater intensity. You realize that you are looking for something. This "something" is: 

a) A fancy shell for your collection. 

b) A nice piece of sea-glass to compliment a piece of jewelry you're making. 

c) The skull of some drowned animal. 

Scenario 3:

It is a bleak midwinter's afternoon and, if the temperature holds steady, you'll be getting miserable, cold rain all day long. You have nowhere to be and nothing planned, so you arrange a largish nest of several blankets on an overstuffed couch and settle in with a book. It most certainly is NOT a book about Pol Pot's nefarious S-21 prison. Anyway, your housecat alights upon your body and settles into drowsy purring. You begin to think: 

a) "Boy, this sure is nice. I wish every day could be like this." 

b) "This is nice every once in a while, but I am an active person with an active lifestyle. Too much of a good thing can be just that, you know." 

c) "I wonder how much motivation I would need to provide for this housecat for it to become a hellish minion, doing my bidding as I see fit. I know too many people who need to have their faces shredded up like pulled pork." 

{TOTALLY REAL CONVERSATION I HAD, PART II}

Friend: What is your favorite movie?
Me: Well, it's a tie between Schindler's List and The Hours. Or, oooh, The Last Emperor.   
Friend: Holy shit, man.

{TOTALLY REAL CONVERSATION I HAD, PART III}

*note: I shall call this person Creepy Ex, because that's what he is now. Then, however, we were dating. And by 'dating' I mean 'he was draining away my youth and vitality and replacing it with vitriol.'

Creepy Ex: You are obsessed with death.
Me: Fuck you, bitch.

It's that last conversation that really got me thinking. Well, mostly I was thinking about what kind of industrial solvent would be needed to removed slaughtered human effluent from the trunk of a 2000 Ford Focus, but after that I acknowledged that my initial reaction to that comment was to feel insulted - as though my dignity had been questioned. In a culture where 'emo' kids are ridiculed but where stores like Hot Topic exist to ironically cater to their "unique" needs, being "obsessed with death" is equivalent to being That Kid Who Plays Magic: The Gathering With Himself At Lunch. Long, friendless days; torpid, sexless nights, and lingering gloom and omnipresent body odor. It's not a pretty (or accurate) picture.

When I purchased the aforementioned Khmer Rouge book from a local booksellery, I stood for a few moments near the checkout counter before I made my purchase. The woman at the counter was bathed in sunlight and was reading some sort of knitting magazine. If she only knew, I thought, that I like to needle-felt because I get to stab something several hundred times and shape it to my own image.  I didn't want to hand the book to her, as if the sorrow contained in the pages could be transferred to her merely through osmosis. Myself? I was nearly rigid with excitement about the book, and I didn't want her to see that, either. When I finally got up the courage to pay for it, she looked at it, looked at me and said "THIS should be a light read." I wanted to lie and tell her that it was for a class, but before I could she chuckled mirthlessly and handed it back to me. I left, feeling slightly judged. It's not a body rotting in a rain-barrel, I thought, so what of it?

What of it, indeed.

Mowgli had been trying to IM me all day (WHERE YOU AT and HOLLA) and, as I approached her mew, I could hear the pulsing beat of some urban music. I say "urban music" because I am too white to know the difference between rap, hip-hop, or the sundry other musics I missed out on by being raised in one of the least diverse states in the country.

Mowgli: There you is, bee-yunch.
Me: That's embarrassing. Is that...is that a do-rag?
Mowgli: I know you came here for some advice. Hurry up; one of my friends is coming soon to work in my weave.
Me: ....
Mowgli: WAITING HERE
Me: Sorry, I was trying to envision a plumicorn weave. Anyway: so why do you think that our society stigmatizes those who have a healthy appreciation for dark things?
Mowgli: First of all, you say "our society" like we belong to the same one. Oh, snap.
Me: Oh for the love.
Mowgli: Fine. It's because most of you Fat Hairy Bipedal Things are trained to associate death and dark things with unhappiness, despair and hopelessness. But you should already know, Anthro-Nerd-King, that many cultures don't see it that way. I mean, hello? Day of the Dead? Holla now.
Me: So what you are saying is that I am within the acceptable range of appreciation of dark things?
Mowgli: I'd be more worried if you collected uvulas and fashioned them into little anklets. And PS., why do you think you were so attracted to working with me? I'm pretty and all, but GET A LOAD OF THESE TALONS. 550 pounds per square inch at the tips. Crush yo FROAT
Me: You are Feathered Death. I can't believe I didn't realize that.
Mowgli: FOO'

And so I went home to dust my rapidly-growing skull collection, having finally embraced the love(s) that dare not speak their names.

***

In the black of the night tonight, carried softly over the pastoral stillness, a Great Horned Owl with an ill-fitting plumicorn weave will realize that she's a little bit country, not a little bit rock and roll, and regret will set in. I plan to be nowhere nearby.

Until next time,

Dom

{This post originally was written for my now-deceased, short-lived blog The Plumicorn Prophecies, which has been merged with this blog}.