dancing just-kidding's (1)

people take themselves too seriously- i, for one.(2)
people have this look on their face as if
the world is about to end.
would we really look so serious if the world
were to end in five minutes?(3)

when i used to hang out in santa monica,
i would get this schizophrenic-y paranoid-al sense of alertness
when i would walk among the crowd. people seemed so absurd.
it was as though i was alert and high, caught in sheer madness
of humanity (and no, i was sober most of the time when i was there).(4)
last week i was there, recalling how i used to feel in santa monica.
i looked around- the people, the stores and i began to feel... funny.
i couldn't stop laughing. that night wasn't any different from the others-
it was just too funny. walking on the promenade, i must have looked too happy to be alive. or crazy.

when did we all start to take ourselves so seriously?
i dont mean let's party it up or think less and do more.
let's not die feeling empty and melancholy.(5)
all we need is that one good joke, you see.(6)

Footnotes:
1. In Sherman Alexie's book called "Face," he has poems with footnotes attached to the words that he wishes to further explain. Like many words in a poem, each word has a story of its own. Sherman Alexie makes me laugh even after a long dreadful day at work, like a lover would. But also like a lover, he makes me cry too- the kind that warms your heart so much that you have to let go a little. Going back to the point of this footnote, I imitated Sherman's way of writing and explaining by attaching footnotes here.
2. Naturally, you would ask, "Helena, that's some random, out-of-the-blue thing to say. What do you mean by this?" Perhaps what I should say here is, "I take myself too seriously." But wait, they say it's good to take things seriously- like your job and school work- i mean, you gotta start planning so you can get into seriously good school, get a seriously great job, get some seriously nice pay, and seriously folks, be a serious and responsible citizen!
3. There are moments when I feel okay to die, then and there. And no, these aren't romantic moments like when I am near the ocean watching the sun go down or lying in bed with someone i love. One time was when I was driving east on the 210 back to Claremont. I should take a picture of myself when such moment should come again and post it here with a title: "The look I will have when I die"
4. (It's been weeks since I wrote this entry, so my footnotes may be different from what I had originally intended to write, but maybe that is more fun (for me) and refreshing) Santa Monica is usually packed with people (of all ages), and there are shops (it's like a mall except it's outside and there are trees and benches and street performers and preachers, and of course, the pier). When I am there I always feel like Johnny Depp in a scene in the movie called "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas." You know when he trips on acid and starts to see dinosaur-like people at the bar? THAT. I almost feel that way when I am walking on third street promenade except... I am not tripping on acid (dun dun dun!)
5. This probably goes hand in hand with my current findings of absurdity in life (or rather, my current re-articulation of my findings of the absurd). What I want to express here is, what will be there with me as I lie dying in bed (or i imagine it being some kind of horizontal plane since most likely i will be lying down, or maybe i will be dying in someone's arms (!)) Is the moment of death brief or can it be described as eternity? Maybe the feeling of emptiness and melancholy comes while we think about death during our lifetime rather than when death arrives. So what does it mean for the living and life in relation to death or to life itself?
6. THIS final note is quite complicated, and I don't quite have a good grasp of it. BUT i wanted to be daring and try to explain myself a little more instead of leaving it at that (maybe i can leave it up to the readers to ponder but maybe they won't if they don't even know what i am getting at). Would you laugh as you are seconds away from death, you realize there has never been any kind of meaning behind life (all the while you have been trying to find meaning in life as you go through your daily routine, hoping and believing there is a greater purpose to your life)?
I wonder if I will get some religious comebacks to what i just said...