Dark Passengers Skip the Line

Still from (c) Good Morning America interview with Michael C. Hall

 I'm really enjoying the new Dexter show.  It's actually inspirational.  Not that I'm going to become a cereal killer.  Too much mess and not really my deal. But the concept of the interior anti-social drive (and yes .... one of the medical labels I've been given by lovers in the past is "sociopath") is an interesting "healing tool". Last week I faced an existential crisis and I've been struggling to figure out how to deal with it and then ... I remembered the power I once possessed to live through the various traumas of the clusterfuck and other hard times. Turns out I still have that mind rider.  It's just not very nice so I haven't let it out in a looooong time. 

But before noting the power, I have to say I love Michael C Hall's face.  I think my face is a little similar, with its deep lines and hardness. I remember seeing him live over a decade ago in 2014's The Realistic Joneses and I assume the star power in the play (w. Tracy Letts, Marisa Tomei, and Toni Collette) was responsible for getting a surrealistic drama on Broadway.  Same reason Godot is heading there where I will see it ON MY BIRTHDAY! (I can't go on we must go on I can't go on dude!).

But I don't have star power.  What I do have is a tiny little itsy bitsy teeny weeny dark passenger who holds a power that my regular every day brain doesn't have. 

I experienced that power, in my youth, as an actual "mind switch" - as an experiential and almost physiological change in my brain when I stepped into that other self.  That self is still present, it turns out, it's strength just waiting to be called on.  Now, it's also a strength that has gotten me shit deep in trouble in the past so, like the cloak of invisibility, or a regular towel, it should be used appropriately, like any magical salvific tool.

For example.  I was walking Winston in Compass Park this morning and I saw a guy with a yardwork truck and trailer set-up putting away a mower and getting ready to get into his truck.  He was wearing a black tank top and he had every right and really, considering his build, every responsibility to be wearing that tank top.  

Still from The Realistic Joneses

So I hollered across NWXing Drive,  "Hey!  Thank you!"

He hollered back, "For what?"

"For wearing a tank top today!"

He paused a moment and then smiled.  "I'm thanking myself now too."