....Some things never change

I created my blog at about 8 this morning while waiting on a friend at ICT, and at the time I hadn't really come up with the right strategy to break ground on this thing....afterall, the first blog entries are always the worst. Thankfully my lack of inspiration was short-lived. I've been out of the country since early June, so as my friend and I drove to Sypes Canyon to pick up his truck we naturally caught up about our similarly crazy summers; his stories centered on the usual subject: the pursuit of women.  Jim, as I'll call him, spent his summer working for a non-profit, traveling from town to town through the wilds of Montana, and this situation afforded him what seemed to be the perfect framework for chasing lots and lots of girls, as he told me, this summer "it was practically raining *****"

now, you might be asking yourself what this could possibly have to do with mythology or really anything at all, for that matter, but just wait. I was particularly captured by one story that Jim told me, and I intend to re-tell it here.

While riding in the truck next to Jim, I discovered a small silver bangle lying on the floorboard, and asking who it belonged to, Jim looked shocked.  He responded:
"There was the girl in Prairie." and that's where our story begins....
One evening Jim's company rolled into this particularly small Montana town, and after getting situated with a place to stay and an early dinner, Jim set out to smoke a bowl.  Jim had been to Prairie a few times before, and being an avid pot smoker, had already lined out a good place to smoke in private, just under a bridge near a local park. However, instead of the privacy he had intended on finding there, he discovered a girl who was all alone, thin, waifish, standing at the riverside with her back to him, fishing. She had headphones in and a Miller Lite in hand.  "I just stood there watching her for five, maybe ten minutes....it was like seeing a ghost....or a water-nymph or something....she had no idea I was there."
Then, after awhile Jim got his courage up and walked right up to her. She took her headphones out, and as he told me, without saying a word he just started kissing this girl.... eventually they decided to go back to Jim's hotel, and we all know how the story goes from here....

He told me that that night he got her number, but woke up in the morning and she was gone from his bed without a trace.  he tried calling but "the thing just rang and rang....not even a real number...typical"

Now if that ain't mythological, then I don't know what is....Reminds me of the short story we talked about in class the other day...an adaptaiton of the abduction of Persephone by Hades. I just thought this was such a perfect example of those mythological footprints...two people who just inherently know how to follow the blueprints provided them...they didn't even need to talk...so many things are at play there, the idea of the nymph unaware of her seducer...Jim, her dusky, cynical "demon lover"...
there's the "siren" imagery too...only twisted...the siren literally "luring" someone in...but also a fisherman herself....a woman capable of the role as the victim (as a virgin nymph) and as the predator, literally fishing on the side of the river...(sea-wary fisherman being a favorite quarry of the mythic steamy songstresses)

also, the tale of the maiden who disappears with not a trace but some kind of token belonging  (glass slipper, anyone?)
this and all the cliches of courting...the "lines" the "typical female" all the lore of the night stand... (maybe she even came down the fire escape!) ...the whole thing was just brimming with mythology...and I just thought it was brilliant. 'Til next time

L