hugs, life without daily human touch, skin hunger, dreams...the intangible is haunting my mind

Today someone accidentally bumped into me and quickly apologized. I said it was okay immediately and then realized it was not only okay, I was almost grateful, since it's so rare I experience human touch unless I hug a good friend or she hugs me.

I joked about it with another friend who was there at the time and she said, perfectly seriously, "There's a name for that."

When I asked her what she meant she told me the term was "skin hunger," which I'd never heard used before:

skin hunger

When you've been without a date for a long, long time, haven't seen your Mom for ages, and no one has hugged you forever and you need someone to touch and hug you, that's skin hunger.

 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=skin+hunger

To complicate things I'd been having the same dream each night this week that someone was hugging me (a pure and simple hug) and that each time I woke from the dream it was almost a physical pain to discover it wasn't real.

My dreams (as I imagine a lot of people's are) often hurt because they feel so real. I sometimes wonder why more people don't talk about them on a regular basis, they're so fascinating...

Sometimes dreams and longing for something you can never have are one and the same...they certainly are both equally elusive.

Saturday odds and ends...

 I really do think there is something to this:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/writing-your-way-to-happiness/?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed&_r=0

	And I am loving this book so far: it's funny, heartfelt in a non-sentimental manner and kind of Dickensian in its narrative (though in a much lighter way). It's not a romance at all, but more a fictional look at how much one woman can affect another woman's life. If you remember the first person you ever looked up to with love and pure adoration, then this book is for you...

At school I remembered how I daydreamed while doodling wobbly profiles of beautiful women in the margins of my exercise books. Women I would mean everything to, women I would save. There was never any doubt in my mind that I could save them and yet within a few fleeting years Aunt Ed, the first (and maybe only) woman I’d ever

love, was dead.

 

 

 

 

This is exactly what I needed to see today and at the right time too. Though I think I like more than seven out of 500 people, I relate to all the rest :)

If you hit the link with the second picture you can better read what is on the other side of the bag.

To read the full text from the bag more clearly go to this link: http://cultivatingthought.com/author/judd-apatow/

 

from Wikipedia

I went to the liquor store to get some wine and they were out of the only screw top pinot grigio they sell. I went with some Moscato instead. Screw top is supposed to be easier to open and I wanted to try something new.

I've only been to the liquor store three times in the past year, but I know enough to know corkscrews and I don't get along. I keep reminding myself of my limited history of visits to that kind of store as I worry that I like wine when I always thought I didn't. Apparently, though, it's only pinot I like because I'm not liking what I'm drinking this evening.

To be completely honest, the only reason I ended up opening the bottle is because I'm stubborn. When I first got home I wanted a sip to unwind from what has turned out to be a very emotional week. I tried twisting one way, then the other.

I tried pulling and pummeling and knocking...nothing. The screw top was screwing me over big time. Now I only wanted the drink because I couldn't have it.

I hate giving up, especially on simple things, so I watched videos (yes, there are videos for opening screw top wines) and read online articles....still nothing. I couldn't budge it.

Then I found this guy* two hours later (while I was doing other things) and (yes!) it worked. The video, unlike the others I watched, offeres more than one option and clearly displays the handling of the bottle and each technique. Plus, the man is so pleasant. 

I'm not happy because I got the wine open (at first I thought the bottle wasn't opening because God was trying to show me I am just not meant for alcohol) but because I didn't give up...I kept trying. It reminded me that the whole reason I wanted to have some wine in the first place was because I've been feeling a bit defeated lately.

And while looking up Moscato wine I discovered it comes from muscat, a family of grapes, with over 200 varieties. I'd rather learn something new than drink wine anyway.



*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCPTsEOeNmY

Spoilers below

Honesty...the woman can't carry a tune that well, but when Jessica Lange takes center stage and sings David Bowie you kind of can't help but want to watch. "Heroes" is definitely not her strong suit, but she's not half bad when she covers "Life on Mars."

 

This season of American Horror Story was off and on dreadful, but the last fifteen minutes of the finale almost redeemed the entire thirteen episode run and not just because my favorite living actress sang my favorite song ever, David Bowie's "Heroes."

 

 

Jessica Lange is never better than when she plays sad and very tormented divas. As Elsa Mars in Freak Show she oddly veers between being the queen of mean and being a very insecure woman, sometimes both at the same time.

There's one particular scene in "Curtain Call" that shows just how powerful the actress is when she embraces emotion. Having waited all day for the head of tv network only to find out he slipped out the back, Elsa loses it and slaps the receptionist when she offers a bit of unsought advice: "If you ask me, change your act. Marlene did it better." 

Following that (and a tussle with a studio security guard) she falls onto the floor a crumpled mess of exhausted desperation. The look in her eyes, genuine and haunting (along with the way she says "My name is Elsa Mars" to the man who helps her), is one of the greatest moments in all of AHS's fourth incarnation.

Once Elsa's dreams come true after moving to Hollywood and getting "discovered," she realizes that dreams can quickly turn to nightmares. Soon, all she wants is for things to be the way they once were when she was happy with all her "monsters" and running her "freak show" in Juniper, Florida.

The last few minutes of "Curtain Call" are so easy to understand and just feel. The minute Elsa agrees to do her variety program live on Halloween (Elsa never performs on Halloween for interesting reasons made clear early on in the season) you know her life has gotten bad enough that she wants to die (or go to Hell)...either option is okay with her.

When she began singing "Heroes," I thought this is it, this is as good as my life gets. I wasn't being sarcastic, but for that moment felt the most bliss I'd experienced in weeks, as pathetic as that may sound. Freak Show might have mostly been bad this year but when it was good it was very good.

Elsa's performance is cut short because Edward Mordrake (it's a long back story, let's just say he knows his way around Hell) comes calling. Instead of punishing her, though, he sends Elsa back to when she was most herself, in Juniper, Florida, singing and being with her beloved "monsters."

It's kind of cheesy and might seem like way more than she should get, but considering Elsa's horrid past and few (but very sincere) attempts to be human (plus throw in this is probably Jessica Lange's last time on AHS), the lavish ending is kind of fitting.



"I just...I need to be with someone I love."-Elsa says to the man (Massimo Dolcefino, played by Danny Huston) she once hoped to be with before all her dreams crashed and burned.