Rituals

The Aztec people were known for their massive human sacrifices to appease the gods. Ritualistic sacrifice was a way of life. Modern Chicagoans know another form of ritual sacrifice: 7am construction on the parking garage in my high-rise. I, having a preternatural and superhuman ability to sleep through just about anything, was not awoken by this cacophony of jack hammering outside. Gucci, on the other hand, was greatly disturbed. You see people think we invented OCD but this disorder has been found in cats for ages. A cat whose routine has been disrupted with act out. Acting out, in Gucci's case, means batting my face with his paw until I wake up to alert me of the noise that has disturbed him.

One of the reason I like cats so much is that they believe in routines. They like things to be the same way every single day. Cats hate surprises. I share this trait with them. After years of shit hitting the fan, bad relationship revelations, and unhappy surprises, I prefer my life get stuck in a rut and stay there. I like waking up even day at the same time and performing the same actions in the same order every day.

Every day I wake up, turn on the Today show, brew espresso and try to convince Gucci to eat his dry food as he rubs his face on where he believes tuna to be located. I then wrangle him into positions that allow me to brush his fur so that he can remain the well groomed handsome kitty I brought home from the shelter. Occasionally I give him a spritz of dry shampoo. Then I eat yogurt and check my empty inbox on Match.com. Some days I will get an e-mail from some misguided bachelor in a faraway land like Somalia or Berwyn. After this I Facebook for approximately five minutes, make an effort to "like" one post every day, though I find that increasingly difficult as elections draw closer and every one of my friends list has a liberal soap box to stand on.

Then after five minutes of play time with Gucci I brew more espresso and sit down to write for about twenty minutes. I then try to read a chapter of a nookbook, scoop and vacuum the space around Gucci's litterbox, load the dishwasher, dust, make my bed and file any papers left out from the day before. After this I go downstairs to the indoor pock to swim twenty laps. Then comes the cleansing ritual. I floss, brush, and mouthwash in that order then I like to stare at my pores in the mirror while envisioning myself making lots of money at work that day. Then I condition my hair, every day, to avoid having it dried out from the chlorine in the pool. I like to shower from the top down so after conditioning I move on to a facial cleansing black soap a la Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, a sea weed exfoliating soap and body conditioner bar. Then I like to close my eyes and stand perfectly still for about thirty seconds and pretend I'm in a rainstorm.

After showering I like to wet my entire face with an ice cube to firm up the skin. Then I spray tea tree oil and witch hazel on my face and dry with a cleansing pad. After that I apply an enzymic moisturizer that absorbs oil throughout the day. I use a powdered herbal deodorant and spray 100 spf sunblock on every day even in the winter. Then I rub a hair fiber on and spray a cologne that matches my mood for the day. Today I'm feeling eccentric so I use Tom Ford. Then I bleach down my bathroom sink and flip the reeds in my scent diffuser. Then I go to the closet, which is serenaded by a choir of angels every time I open the door, and pick out an outfit for the day. I try to set the tone of the day with my outfit. Today is a Marc Jacobs day. Then I pick out a pair of loafers to wear to work, which sounds easy but I have more loafers than the mens department at Nordstrom, so this process can take up to fifteen minutes.

I know at this point I must seem like a crazy person but this post is about perspective. When most people close their eyes they see the dark inside of their eyelids. When I close my eyes this is what I see:

I'm well aware that I'm not like other people. I'm so far outside the realm of normalcy that I've almost done a full lap around the solar system of crazy and come back to normal. I like my rituals because they create order in my life, which is otherwise a supernova of histrionic brightly colored exploding bedazzled drama. Nothing in my life is toned down. It's like my brain is a music switchboard and where some people merely tweak the treble or bass up or down I move every single slider to it's maximum. I dwell in my ridiculousness, I adore it. I mean, one of the considerations of picking a cat to adopt was, "Will he or she match my home decor?"

I've given up trying to live like other people. I see other people as the listless peons one by one stepping off a cliff to appease the gods of modern times. I think I've spent so much of my life being different than the people around me that instead of resenting it or trying to change it I've become a little infatuated with the parts of me that are absurd and over the top. As far as I'm concerned too much is just enough.