As a rule I try to avoid new experiences. The problem is that I’m too much a people person. Call me an introverted extrovert, or whatever the hell. Those words don’t have meaning anymore. What is important is that I have a hard time remembering who I am when I meet a whole lot of new people. Or maybe everyone has that problem and no one talks about it. Because it feels pretty damn universal to me, like all the new energy just washes over me like a I’m a bit of writing in the sand, maybe a little heart with just my initials in the middle, and all these new people and experiences are a big fuck-off wave.
So, is it even right to say that I am sitting in front of the fireplace in Hillary’s chalet while Roberto pours more wine for us and Hank plays piano in the corner. I was never here to begin with. The thing sitting on the couch and laughing dutifully at Roberto’s joke about getting us too drunk is a sophisticated woman. Now, I don’t really know much about high-society, or sophistry, but because I can’t hold onto myself I’m very good at mirroring. It’s really easy, actually. I don’t know why everyone can’t do it. You go blank like the fresh sand and you just feel what they feel, let it bounce back out of you like your heart is a trampoline. So, I copy Hillary’s laugh, I hold my wine glass with both hands, curled around it like Hillary, and occasionally I make a bawdy joke like Roberto and I talk about being very tired of L.A. and I truly feel Hank’s frustration with his personal assistant having screwed up flights back down next week.
Obviously it helps when everyone is drunk, but even without, even as I ran into their little threesome coming off the slope, it was easy to say hello, to judge what sort of hello it aught to be, and to invite myself to dinner. When I have tried to talk about this, this disappearing (or is it that a new me is appearing?), people might say “why? Did you want something?” and I roll my eyes and understand that they can’t understand. It is a compulsion, and the thing you get for being compulsive happens before the compulsion, not afterward. So, I keep building the maze of this new self until it falls apart or until I get bored, which the latter never happens. It’s always that I am caught in a lie, and people might say “well aren’t you too ashamed when that happens?” and yes, I am incredibly ashamed, to discover that I am not who I believed I was.