NOTE: this post goes off the rails a little / might sound kind of crazy due to stress, my creative-brain being very plugged-in, and listening to / watching The Real History of Secret Societies, The Agency: A History of the CIA, and the news these days. I’m not really unhinged; I just have all of the words and the atmosphere of such things swirling around in my head, and they came out to play this way mainly in uncensored fun.
I have to fill in our (late-by-extension, must be mailed tomorrow) tax forms by hand this year. And I’m glad.
There’s something about forms that I love. I love the little boxes. The contrast between the standardized, designed, official portions and the ballpointed handwriting. The governing body, and the individual. The intimate personal numerical and identifying details captured, disclosed … fighting the boundaries and constraints of the spots allotted to them, but still … reigned in.
I did not excel in school … except on tests. If not for standardized tests they might have thought me retarded (they kind of did even with the high test scores).
Tests were my saving grace. I loved the special ritualized occasions of everything being timed and totally quiet. Explicit and very clear instructions. Breaking seals and filling in bubbles with perfect number 2 pencil lead shining metallic depending on the angle of light. The clarity, the peace, the perfection.
Fancy and precious. Like a brand new perfect sidewalk you are invited to walk on alone in complete silence, before anyone has spit or shit on it. Before someone jumps the curb and it crumbles. Like “democracy” and the way we’ve never *all* gotten to vote like it really existed. Like nobody having the story straight and complete memory of those Diebold machines and that election that truly was stolen. I thought I remembered that multi-creepy-named conflicted-interest outfit also was deep in the school testing racket but Wikipedia doesn’t make any note of it, and I have a long way to go to finish this test I am ultimately failing at.
Pencils down.
Die. Bold. Dominion.
I love the way the writing implements are specified. The colors of ink. The kind of pen. The hardness of lead.
The small conspiracies. The big ones.
The accumulated signatures against the tiny letters of protest.
The secret societies.
The inner sanctum.
The signs, the seals, and the things not to be revealed. The blue print and the black hands inking their devilish details.
The way I just like writing conspiratorial-sounding nonsense like a paranoid mystic, and that is another reason the forms and standardized tests are good for me; there is no line item labeled for or enough space to fill in this kind of intoxicating fantasy misdirection and distraction.
So many of us pass the tests with flying colors because they never ask a question like “are you crazy? Describe in essay format on the following blank page.”
The tests and forms are strictly-boundaried containers allowing for the wordy daydreamer success. Unless there’s an episode of “The Twilight Zone” I missed.
I confidently imagine they are happy to receive my forms, free from the out-of-bounds complaints and toxic addendums other differently-crazed people like to send them. Mine are carefully prepared, and stay within the lines.
