The Mall

I have decided that since I feel like a child, I’ll act like one, too. That means some mandatory mall rat moments, I think.

I have never been a mall rat in a previous lifetime; my family was below poverty line half my upbringing. It was too much gas money to spend just to take anyone anywhere that wasn’t strictly necessary. Not to mention that my father was the sole driver for the longest time. He used it as a means to control everyone in the household, too.

So now that I’m back at square one, I figure I should have a teenage phase. A real one. I’m nearly forty, but forget that. I doubt I look forty or even thirty, necessarily. (Hair dye ftw!) I used to bleach it and dye it all kinds of funky colors but I’ve recently dyed it black and gave myself a haircut. It used to be five inches longer in the front than in the back and now I’m told I have a Prue vibe (from Charmed.) Forget that it was Phoebe with the pixie cut. I guess it’s because I went black again. The thing is, bleach is heinous on the hair cuticle, so I don’t want to do it all that consistently. I suppose I didn’t have to cut my anime hair off, but I need a change. A change that has nothing to do with my ex, Psycho Boy Ben.

As part of having a teenage phase, I’ve decided staying up until 3:00 am is my happy place when it comes to sleeping (and subsequently getting up between 10:30 and 11:00 am to start my day.) It’s a real problem for me that there aren’t more jobs out there that start around noon. If they do exist, they tend to pay peanuts.

For most of my life, I’ve been getting up at 6:00 am (or thereabouts) to work. This is not for me; it’s too early. I have to torture myself in order to get out of bed at this time every single day or I will deviate from that schedule because I am a night owl. I enjoy the quiet of midnight to three in the morning. I enjoy the silence. The wildlife barely makes a peep during these hours, for noise is what draws predators to prey. I think better as a night owl. Even when I was working, people noticed around noon time, I would come to life, so to speak. I was awake and working, but until noon… not very personable. My brain was always in low gear all morning. It makes me feel like a zombie, to be honest, to live life in low gear.

I always feel most awake on a night owl schedule. I don’t even really need coffee to keep it consistent but I have grown fond of the strong brew. So fond, I think I’m addicted to it, honestly. I’d love to start buying a coffee from Starbucks every day, but that shit is too expensive. That’s like buying a gallon of gas every day. I hear people bitch about gas prices and turn around and blow $8 at Starbucks on their favorite drink and a cookie. (Fuck you frivolous people and your lack of critical thinking!)

Because I’m getting in touch with my inner teenager, I’ve been going into GameStop, Hot Topic, and the obligatory calendar store that seems to be in every mall. I love all the fun, neat things that are around, but I look at puzzles and I say, “Well, I have eight puzzles I haven’t put together yet, I can wait.” I look at video games and I say, “Well, I haven’t set up any game systems yet. I can wait.” (Although I must admit, I definitely wanted to buy the G.I. Joe game for Xbox One. But, then I tell myself, I haven’t even finished Borderlands 3 yet, so it can definitely wait.)

When you wait, it gets cheaper, wouldn’t you know? G.I. Joe is pretty cheap already, being $9.99 brand new as of right now, but still… it can get cheaper. I did see Katamari Reroll for $20.00 and I almost bought it. But then I reminded myself: it gets cheaper. I love Katamari, that’s my jam! It’s my favorite game of all time, no matter which one it is, so it’s a no-brainer to pick it up. I must admit, the maps are pretty much the same between all the games and owning them all is kind of moot. Unless you really like the snarky shit the King says to the Prince. That changes based on the game.

And I learned that if I buy things from Hot Topic and they fall apart, I basically cannot replace them because they don’t stock enough of them to have any when I go back one week later. I wonder where all my goth friends are at, though, since it’s a spike-studded choker. (Where you at, peeps? I wanna play! Video games, of course. Listen to music and get my groove on. Et cetera.)

Maybe they’re just punks, although using the word “just” might flag that I think it’s lesser and I don’t think that way, I’m just disappointed to be all alone… but there were goths here once, I know that for sure! Maybe they all hang out at the tattoo parlors. I was surprised to find that there’s a tattoo parlor in the mall. That’s unusual in my books. The city I came from… well, they were all in strip malls instead of The Mall(tm).

You know, even in the city I lived in, there were not very many goths to find. Maybe it’s because we’re all introverted and tend to stay home and stuff. Maybe there’s a great goth meetup somewhere! I’m not sure I like the meetup platform, but it serves a purpose, I suppose. I look on Discord and all I see is sex-centric bullshit. Not everything in life is about fucking, people!

In fact, most of life has nothing to do with procreation. (Did you forget that’s the main purpose of fucking?) We’ve become hedonistic assholes who care only about how much pleasure we’re getting right now. No, thank you. I don’t even really like getting attention that indicates that maybe someone thinks about me in that way. Someone I don’t know, I might add, since I shirked everyone I used to know.

I like my over-sized “boyfriend clothes” that includes a 4x sweatshirt when I’m a medium shirt size. I like leggings because they feel good, but showing off the rear end is inviting lust, so that 4x sweatshirt comes in handy. Until it gets hot, anyway. (I’ll confess, I didn’t buy the sweatshirt; someone left it at my place a long, long time ago and we don’t talk anymore.)

I can’t wait to pull out the 4x Dragon Ball Z beauty in my closet, either. It’s so colorful, though; it’s a rare thing for me to wish to wear all that color. And orange isn’t really my thing. But it does have Goku as a Super Saiyan on it and some dragon balls, so, you know, I can see wearing it once in a while. (I like Piccolo more, but again, this is an abandoned item in my possession. I’ll make the most of it!) I have a few massive t-shirts, as well. Nice black ones.

I thought about trying to get a part time job at Hot Topic while I figure out what I’m doing with my life. Unfortunately, I have bladder issues right now and I don’t think it’d work out to close the storefront every hour for five minutes. It really sucks to be in a broken body, I’ll tell you that much. (Oh, but you can freelance! the children cried at me. Yeah, have you had luck with that yet, kids? Oh, you can sell NFT, Sansara! You’re a brilliant artist! Again… have you had any luck with that?)

I do have an idea of how to work for myself and I’m building up to it. I’m a reiki master and I can heal people for cash. The problem is that I don’t want to actually meet a ton of people. Furthermore, who is going to take a goth girl seriously when she says she can heal you? I’ll have to prove it first. I suppose I could leave my spikes and chains for after hours, but I enjoy those tidbits the most. I stopped wearing them just to have a career the first time. And I am not going to give up my dream of a full on back tattoo just because it’s “not professional.” Fifteen years of subverting myself and my own personality just to “make it.” I’m done, thanks.

The last time I went to the mall, I saw a man when I walked in. (Okay, I saw a lot of people, but I saw one man who stood out in the crowd and it was directly after I entered the mall.) He had sleeves (tattoos) and some wicked piercings and he looked pretty attractive to me… but here’s the kicker, my friends. He smiled at me a little and I smiled back and about five steps later, I saw his hand go to his hair to make sure it looked good.

This. has. never. happened. to. me. before.

What? I’m in The Twilight Zone. A guy I thought looked hot was checking his hair after smiling at me? What?!

I don’t know what to do. Other than go back and see what happens. I have to go back anyway because I have Hot Cash to spend. I left before I spent it all. I had collected some heavy bags from a clothing store just before I went into Hot Topic, so, yeah. I didn’t really spend a lot of time in there.

I was wearing my fox ears. Maybe that’s the key! I know it’s stupid, but maybe because I had the fox ears on I looked more receptive to the casual bystander. Maybe they make me seem outgoing. I have to tell you, I’m the only person I’ve seen wearing ears consistently all around town. In fact, a cute young lady with red hair stopped to talk to me with her mom. She said all I needed was a tale. Her mom reminded me of a lady I used to know named Cathy, but I can’t remember for the life of me what her last name was because I was just three and a half feet tall, but she lived across the street from me in the ghetto.

Now, I don’t go out much, but I do leave the house every day to do something. (Mostly, grocery shopping, because I need to eat the freshest food possible due to being sick with mold toxicity. I sure hope that goes away soon, but I can’t rush it. I’ve tried!) I go to the park and feed the birds. I go to a nearby lake to watch the water. I hope to rent a kayak for an hour or so soon; I miss kayaking. I now go to the mall sometimes, but I don’t like spending money. I never really liked spending money. I investigate new things when it occurs to me, but that’s pretty infrequent. I love window shopping most of all, putting everything in my digital cart, then asking myself, ‘What do I truly need?’ Most of it comes back out of the cart, I’ll tell you that.

Still… y’all… For the first time in my life, a hot guy checked his hair after smiling at me.

I watched New Girl for several seasons. There are some gems of insight in that show, I’ll tell you. One of them is noting that every person goes through a phase where they’re inexplicably attractive. Maybe I’m there. I wouldn’t have thought so because I’ve always known I am beautiful inside and that’s all that matters and I don’t really give a fuck if anyone else thinks like I do. I was definitely an ugly duckling if something has changed visibly on the outside. I guess the world is vain; I lost 150 pounds and now I’m beautiful? Fucking A! That sucks for everyone else in the same boat. The boat where you do everything, including starving yourself, including anorexia, for years and years and you never lose a fucking pound, no matter what. All because some asshole told you the secret is limiting calories and exercising more. SPOILER: IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY.

I got a shocker for you, my friend: it’s mold. You can’t lose weight because of mold. Check all your water-related areas in the house and make sure you have zero leaks. Check your gutters and spouts and make sure they’re working properly. Filter your indoor air obsessively. Stop eating sugar and dairy and yeast and mushrooms. Watch the scale budge without effort, too. Get some probiotics into you to take the place of the mold coming out of you. And wash all your produce and cook all your vegetables. Cook your meat through all the way, even though it’s tastier rare or just done. Overdone is better for your gut if you have to choose between just done and overdone. Try to eat six small meals a day. And if you’re not allergic, get some nuts into you. Stop eating things that are ground up for you; the tools to grind it are dirty and infested with mold spores. That means coffee (grind it yourself!), tea (grow it yourself!), peanut butter, sunflower seed butter, nut butter in general. [In the case of smoothies, just dump it in the blender raw and whole.] Stop eating the shit that comes in a box or a can and eat fresh.

That’s my weight loss advice. I’m not a licensed professional but it’s what I did to get better. I hope you give it a shot. And I know it’s hard to get over that sugar hump. Try Monkfruit sweetener with erythritol and honey as your alternatives. Stick to low-sugar fruits (blueberries, apples.) I also avoid acids (vinegar, citrus, tomato.)

It’s a lot to change, but the great news is you can take baby steps. It will take longer to make a big difference, but you’ll still get there.

For full disclosure, I was on the ketogenic diet for two years and nearly killed myself. I don’t recommend it at all. It did help me lose weight dramatically quickly, which is against the advice of all weight loss experts out there except the doctor who helped me nearly kill myself. Instead, if you are a lady, you probably need 25% more fat in your diet than a gentleman. Fat is not your enemy; it’s how you feel full for a period of time after you eat and a bunch of vitamins you eat every day are fat-soluble, meaning you don’t ingest them properly without fat! By cutting out fat and going all (bad) carbs + protein, it’s setting up for a bad storm inside your guts. In fact, you might already be there.

Namaste. I hope you get well soon.

XO XO
Sansara