at the metaphysical fair

first off, i would just like to say that i think that would be a wonderful title for a novel, so won't you please write one and entertain me with it?

but moving on. my mother and i went to a metaphysical fair this weekend. because i live in a place with a high enough concentration of weird that they actually organize it into events... so why not play? my father made fun of us. (when you have done something that can legitimately be ridiculed by an engineer, you know you have sunk low.) it was a totally entertaining time.

i must note that we parked across from los dos pepes, which is the best restaurant name i've encountered in a long while. there were all sorts of... shiny... people at said fair. wearing many of the long flowy scarves and vacant expressions with which i plan to accessorize my eccentric old age. and glitter. and the kind of costumes that you expect from renaissance fest. totally fantastic. especially since most of them were over 40. apparently, metaphysical fairs are fair game for the vending of everything from pamphlets on how too much estrogen disrupts your psychic flow (i said psychic), to magnets, to pictures of spirit animals, to crystals (aka pretty rocks). i definitely bought a pretty rock. perhaps it will miraculously change my life, but i'm betting i'll just stare at it occasionally when there are better things to not do. basically, it was shiny thing overload (and we know how distracted i get by shiny things) coupled with entirely too much incense: i was generally befuddled. there, scene set.

arranged around the outside of the rooms were the real reason we went, the various purveyors of mystic information. it was honestly awesome to have such a selection of tarot readers and scryers and spirit animal finders and aura photographers and chi cleansers all in one place. it's amazing they didn't have to call in the ghostbusters. in the spirit of the event, my mother and i chose to decide who did our readings by wandering around seeing who we were drawn to. which was amusing in itself. we finally ended up with the aura camera in front of the serenity labyrinth (you wander around to the middle, stand and contemplate your journey, and take the same path back to the outside -- benefits dubious). i didn't realize that auras were such a "scientific" pursuit that actually requires hooking you up to biofeedback sensors that then translate your energy into colors on the film (shut up and play along). our pictures turned out remarkably similar (and bright ass red), so i had to stare around at others to assure myself that the camera didn't just take the same damn picture all the time. it didn't. one woman had a very pretty pastel version, the teenager publicly digging in his nose in the front row was almost entirely purple, etc. it was really cool to hear the reader translate colored blobs into statements about myself and my life (she didn't even ask questions -- no help making it relevant). apparently the orange blob that looks like a broccoli crown above my head means i am completely repressing my creative side (dirty looks from mother here; she has been telling me this since approximately one minute after i was accepted to school for ag economics). the spot over my mouth means i present myself as i really am and tell things as i see them (not a huge surprise, but how many people get that?). and the yellow blob on my left is an angel or female guiding spirit (this impressed some random person who happened to see my picture later). i'm not sure how the angel thing relates to the superstitions that death and the devil appear over your left shoulder -- is this a malicious angel? would she have told me? should i worry? out, out damn spot, etc. interesting, though.

as it is impossible to attend such an event and walk away with only a rock and an aura picture, i also wandered around until i found an especially sparkly woman with tiger-striped glasses and a crystal ball to read tarot for me. i really like the way tarot cards sound when you move them. this worries me a little. anyway, the most salient point from that reading is that it confused her because there was absolutely nothing about love in my cards. what girl my age gets zero relationship info (and what in hell could she therefore talk about)? this reading, too, cautioned me not to ignore my creativity (at which point my mother progressed from dirty looks to nudging me violently); she really wanted to tell me to quit school and do something else, but (because my mother was there) settled for explaining that i was at the end of a cycle and would soon see rapid change that would land me somewhere completely unexpected and foreign. and told me to "travel light" at least five times. which is funny, because "travel" is absolutlely no problem for me but "light" is a formidable challenge, being the collector (of surprisingly heavy things) that i am. actually, i think this was meant in the passage to india sense of "don't burden yourself with connections to people," but that's less fun to complain about so i'll ignore it. so... interesting. and now i'm really interested to find out the historical basis of the different cards and why they were included in the deck, because i love that sort of background stuff.

at any rate, it was an excellent way to spend a cloudy day. i highly recommend that you all hie thee hence to the metaphysical fair at the first available opportunity. bonus points if you dress for the occasion.