Friday, January 25, 2008

Gettin' Down in Funkytown

I'm in a funk. I can't help myself. I've been a aggravated mix of frustrated, overwhelmed and just straight bummed for the last few days.

I know that this sounds like the kind of emotional girl alert that any guy with half a brain runs from before he gets burned. But even though my guy is selfless enough to jump in to my emotional zoo with reckless abandon, and even though I know inherently what's bothering me, actually expressing it is a horse of a different color.

I know I'll be OK, better than OK. I know that I am incredibly blessed, and that the things that get me down should not have such a hold on my heart.

I just can't get that across to the Mayor of Funkytown, who has taken up residence in my spirit - he's brought the U-Haul, planted windowboxes of wilted gray flowers and everything, and now I can't get the dang guy to leave. And hes not even like the cool dude from Funkytown with the sweet moves who's casually dating an iPod silhouette. This guy is a little gray man in a big gray overcoat no matter the weather. He smells like yesterday's ham sandwich, brown bananas and uncreative despair.

He doesn't even have the gumption to have a good reason for his stubborn rental of my soul. He's cruel to to anyone with hope, ties my tongue when I should speak, and cultivates his garden of dreary gray-ness in my heart, of all places.

The more I think about it, I realize it's time to evict such a drag on my spirits. It's time to plant bright daisies in the windows and break out the cutesy yellow galoshes instead of the gray overcoat I've drearily shared with my "friend" the Mayor. Even if it's raining... why let him make me act like it?

3 comments:

Adam said...

Is your book out yet?!

P.S. I want recount on the Mayoral election of Funkytown! I vote for Richard Simmons or Stuart Smalley.

~lady j said...

uncreative despair is a delicious choice of words... but your post made me think about sideways stories from wayside school... with the teacher, mrs. jewels who hated dead rats? and somewhere around chapter 20 there was a boy named sammy? and he came into class wearing a big smelly raincoat and every time mrs. jewels pulled it off of him the smell got worse and there was another dirty, smellier raincoat underneath? and then sammy started shrinking in stature from losing all his raincoats because mrs. jewels was chunking them out the window? and then when all the coats were gone, it turned out sammy WAS a dead rat? so i think she threw HIM out the window too???

the mayor reminds me of that.
or maybe the poopsmith.

cheers, love. :)

Katie said...

I remember that boy named Sammy! And if anyone shows up in a big smelly overcoat, they definitely deserve eviction. Particularly when they drag wilted gray flowers in with them.

Break out the galoshes indeed, Dani Lin. And curl up with a good book and a quad-shot latte, and here's a hug from Oxford. :)