Traditionalist in the Streets, Surrealist on the Sheets

I have always had an appreciation for the dark and the weird, but it wasn't until I got to grad school that I realized I also appreciated that in my fiction. Primarily with books like "House of Leaves," "The People of Paper," and "The Book of Lazarus." For whatever reason, I found myself very comfortable in the chaos found on the pages of those books. They were fictional narratives that colored outside the lines and made their own distinct choices as to how they wanted to be told. They were original and bold and I was enthralled by the formatting and narrative possibilities they awakened in my own writing. 

More often than not, I'm also drawn to the more challenging narratives found in film or art. I like the absolute weirdness found in David Lynch's work (specifically Twin Peaks), though I confess to not understanding a great deal of what he's attempting to say (though I've heard plenty of people go on and on about their theories). I appreciate the spectacle that comes with a movie like Lars von Trier's Melancholia or Gaspar Noe's Into the Void. Maybe it's because I enjoy being unsettled. Maybe it's because these works feel somehow more intentional, that they exhibit some kind of inherent immediacy, or that they require more intense focus in order to unwrap them and enjoy their strange, gooey center. 

The same spills over when it comes to music; I love good progressive rock or metal (usually metal preferred) or the more fusion-related styles of jazz, if I'm in the mood. Again, albums like The Mars Volta's De-loused in the Comatorium or Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro. These aren't just products you can throw on the TV or the stereo and enjoy passively - there's an intention of attention required to really get the full measure of the thing, and I really enjoy this aspect of my particular entertainment choices. 

But my affinity for the weird stops at my consumption of, and subsequent creation of, anything entertainment-related. Ironically, it turns out that I'm very, very particular about certain other aspects of my life. I'm very neat and orderly and overwhelmingly opposed to chaos in my daily movements. I make my bed every morning and I like having my things just so around my apartment. I'm not a huge fan of my books being out of their order (unless I'm reading them) and my record collection is sorted out first by genre, then alphabetically within each genre. 

On my laptop, I have folders in folders in folders. I am organized to the nth degree, which is both great for desktop cleanliness, but a pain in the ass when I really need to find something more immediately, whether for work or otherwise. I dislike clutter immensely and I've gotten rid of a great deal of it during the four times I've moved in the last 5 years. 

Weirdly, I don't have a lot of pictures of friends or family hung up on the walls or placed on desktops or tables. That's never really been my style as I've always preferred being surrounded by art for some reason. It's an interesting dichotomy, to swing so hard one way creatively and to swing all the way to the other side externally. I don't really understand it, but I remember thinking it odd the first time I fully realized it for what it was. 

I'm 41 now. I've been (mostly) single for the last 16 years, having found myself caught up in finishing my education and drowning myself in my work. Both workstreams afforded me a kind of solace in my solitude and kept my brain active and busy. I came out the end not only well-educated but with a wealth of material to mold and reshape into whatever form I want. These are, in my opinion, very good things. I'm more than a little proud of my accomplishments, knowing full well that I had a massive amount of help along the way. I'd be lying if I said there hadn't been a lot of lonely nights in the process. 

Maybe it's because I dislike chaos in my daily life. Maybe I've simply gotten used to flying solo for so long that my emotional growth has stunted and turned into something gnarled and hard to work with; an unyielding clay that's more prone to break in the kiln than becoming something usable. Do we become harder to be with the longer we go without the more regular affection of another? Do we become more emotionally pliable the more we allow ourselves to be? 

Hard to say as I'm neither psychologist nor psychiatrist, but I can recognize when a thing needs deeper understanding or a keener eye to peer inside it and figure out how it works. Clearly, I appreciate the need for that kind of examination. 

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