Deep Thoughts with Melanie Griffith

All Melanie Griffith wants is to show you the way to true enlightenment. And so she has hired a frustrated and, without a doubt, soulless team of web designers to create Avalon, a fantastically self-indulgent confection of Yanni-esque music, amateurish flash movies and magnificent scenes of nature. She must be congratulated for being refreshingly honest about her addiction to prescription drugs, but on the other hand, Avalon seems like a sinister sceme to get back on her fans' (who are all undoubtedly good, God-fearing and chubby midwestern housewives and thus a little behind the times) good sides.

Well, she's doing a good job of it. Her site pretty much covers all bases, from the Goddess Book Club featuring priceless contributions to literature such as Sting's Autobiography Broken Music and The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis. Book discussions must be real inter-llectual, like.

Griffith also provides tips on how to connect with your inner child, or something to that effect through "The Story of Avalon," a section of the website devoted to all that meditation and inner-peace bullshit that celebrities buy into. According to Griffith, Avalon is some sort of unattainable imaginary arcadia to which one can escape in order to avoid one's problems. She words it somewhat differently, but the idea is the same:

When I want to escape from this sometimes insane life of mine, I close my eyes and conjure up my very own Avalon. Like this island of legend, there is beauty, tranquility, serenity and peace.

I too withdraw into my own personal fantasyland when life gets the best of me. Hey, it helped me with all of my problems. All you have to do is imagine that you're a child on a rocking horse in a wonderful playroom, and to lose yourself in this chimerical environment. It greatly confuses the prosecution when the defendent starts rocking back and forth while tunelessly humming "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" in the middle of a grand jury hearing. Thank you for that, Melanie, I owe it all to you.

The "Dream Room" is worth looking at, too. There, Melanie reveals how she looks "to her inner conscience for answers." She advises that to find answers to life's problems, one should write to one's inner-self. She provides a template for this:

Dear Inner Self,
If it is your will, please reveal to me in a dream tonight the positive way to (insert problem here) in order to become closer to you.

With love and respect,
(Insert your name)

So last night I tried this method of solving my problems. I wrote the following letter to my Inner Self:

Dear Inner Self,
If it is your will, please reveal to me in a dream tonight the positive way to cook a fluffy and light mini chocolate souffles in individual ramekins in order to become closer to you.

With love and respect,
Laura

And guess what? That night, I dreamed that I was in a kitchen, grating chocolate and beating eggs. Then, I was taking an exam when I realized that I wasn't wearing any clothes, so I ran outside and jumped onto a large Jersey cow, adorned with fresh flowers, which I rode over the mountains of Kansas under the honey-yellow harvest moon. Then, I reached the sacred mountain just beyond whatever their capital is. There I ascended to the top and made a sacrifice of Harry Potter books to the child-goddess of nouvelle cuisine. She ascended from the heavens to bestow upon me the secret to fluffy and light mini chocolate souffles in individual ramekins, but then my alarm clock went off. I think that my inner self was telling me that I have a long journey to go before I shall be given the power to create real ultimate souffles. There are no mountains in Kansas.

Well, since this dream had gotten my knickers in a twist, I decided to visit the "Meditation Room", described as "a wonderful place to regain the peace and tranquility that we so often lose during the day." I chose the "World Peace" meditation, which displayed a pulsing montage of fluffy dandelion seeds set against a purple background. I was instructed to use the mantra "I am One with All." I switched off all the lights in my room, crossed my legs and let myself be drawn into the feathery purple swirls and the soaring, Mobyesque soundtrack. I repeated my mantra over and over again. Unfortunately my attempt to bring about world peace was thwarted when Pimp Master Dopetastic Diamondtrim Sweet Chocolate O. Daviron Diz-Dazzle began banging on the door and threatening to pimp-slap my muthafuckin' ass because a ho who don't trick is a ho who needs to be kicked to the curb, you dig me bitch? And while we talkin' where the hizzy is my green-green, ho?

So shit, I've got to get to work. But before I leave to ply my luscious unspoiled young Oriental peach-blossom body on the mean streets of Kuum-Ni, North Korea, I'll leave you with this inspirational missive that I found on the message board, courtesy of a man I shall, unfortunately, never know by any name other than "Brunie":

I have been having yellow stool lately and wonder why. I try to keep harmony in the body but these stool have a habit of offensive odor. What can I do to promote the fitness and harmony to get rid of this strange stool and odor before it causes me situations of ambarrassment?

God bless you, Brunie.

Listening to: "A Letter to Elise" by The Cure