Giving It Up

I wrote this incredibly long blog post about Star Wars. 

Not posting it.  (Yet?)

The most interesting thing that came out of writing 42 inches of ramblings on fucking Star Wars - something I never, ever in my life expected I would do - was that I feel an intense shame at loving something so cliche.  Even something as simple, universal, and super duper neato as Star Wars. 

Instead of posting I berated myself for looking into things too deeply, for being embarrassed because I care about something.  I'm not proud to love something childhood-defining like Star Wars anymore.  I feel trite and generic and unsuitable, I feel the premature (and totally unlikely) slings and barbs from millions of internet strangers who will judge me for the banality of my mind and HOLY MOTHBALLS am I afraid of being wrong and being judged by those who are more worthy of attention.  I'm afraid of being pigeonholed into a girl who does things to impress people instead of a person who wants to do them. I'm afraid of being a fraud.  No, that's a lie.  I'm afraid of people thinking I'm a fraud.

I know I am not a fraud.  

Now I'm mad about something that hasn't happened yet. ACCEPT THE WAY I VIEW MYSELF WITHOUT PROOF, PEOPLE.  I AM SPECIAL. I DEMAND YOU BELIEVE THAT I WROTE THIS THING THAT WOULD ESTABLISH AN OPINION, BUT I AM NOT SHARING THAT OPINION WITH YOU.

Maybe I'm adhered to old personality traits to an unhealthy degree, identifying with a self that brought me so much social discomfort that I won't let go out of sheer obstinence (fuck you, word derivations, this is way better than obstinateness) or for fear of losing my identity, when in reality identity is something we create rather than succumb to.  We build upon our natural tendencies and choose to show people what we are comfortable showing.

The identity that I've created for myself, it appears, is built upon anger, bitterness, humor, otherness.  I'm sure of who I am but really unsure as to why.  That's why is Star Wars is relevant.  

Obviously this is not really about Star Wars at all, it's about every form of entertainment I gravitate towards and how I allow them to shape my perception of myself and the world.  But it's also about how I allow my feelings about these stories shape how I see myself, it's about how I congratulate myself because I value specific things.  That's fucked. (It's okay if I'm lonely, I am a "good" judge of television shows!)

Please allow me to nerd out:

Right now nerds are a hot topic (well, let's be honest, nerds have been a hot topic for years) because of the obvious things:  the generation of people who grew up feeling shame for loving things now resent the universal acceptance younger fans have in society and the world at large.  Since the elders have been trained to feel shame for their very existence, they now feel it for resenting these young fans because this is what they wanted for themselves, and they worked hard to make things easier for the next generation of "nerds", who aren't even nerds anymore because nerds are "overly intellectual, obsessive, or socially impaired," and nerdy interests are no longer things that make one a social outcast. The elders are jealous.  

So instead of admitting the above paragraph is for true, elder nerds call the newcomers fake and phony, which is fucking stupid.  It's a purely selfish thing.  

It's purely selfish and narcissistic for me to refuse to give a reader the chance to make a decision about me, as a person, unless I've guided them strategically towards that decision.  It makes me controlling.

I've never wanted to write about the topic of nerds.  There are people out there that are better suited for those writings, people that are respected, people who beat the topic into the foundation of the internet, people who do not need someone to validate their expertise.  Besides, who wants to read my thoughts on that crap?  Throwing more water in the rat soup will yield more soup, but it doesn't improve the taste.

Fuck it. I'm going to post my thoughts on this shit because I fucking damn well want to, and I don't care if it bores you.  Once I started to believe I was abnormal and wrong as a person I turned paranoid.  No more.

This year for Lent: I am giving up guilt and shame.

...

It's Impossible to Possess Knowledge That Does Not Change Us In Some Way

For the sake of this post, let's pretend it's June.  We're sitting there for a few minutes when the little man comes over.  He vaguely introduces himself and it becomes clear that he's been watching Fraya from the other side of the bar for about a year which is some creepy shit, but he says it with such candor that it's almost endearing.

As usual, I try to include myself in the conversation but he only looks at me with jittery reluctance.  No doubt Fraya and Schmee will disagree with that. 

Do we learn how to behave based on how we are treated, or do people treat us a certain way because of our behavior?  If I've learned anything by the way strangers respond to me it's that (a) I know things, (b) I am appallingly naive, (c) I am unworthy of attention, and (d) I am the most interesting person in the world.

Obviously this information is useless.  I look over at the man. Why is he so nervous? 

I don't think I'm intimidating (if anyone wants to contradict this, feel free to do so in the comments - something like, "Of course you're intimidating because you are luminous, bold, powerfully intelligent, hilarious, intense, and sexy as hell and everyone is in awe of you because you are actually real and not just a projection of the perfect being generated by our collective imagination and desires, like The Fifth Element, I mean you're totally the fifth element and 1989-era Bruce Willis wants to do you even though Fifth Element came out in 1997" will do very nicely) but usually I'm just not...maybe "impressed" is the word?  Usually I'm not fucking impressed by your ability to breathe and exist. What I find impressive is the rhythm of your words, how and why you put a sentence together.

So this little middle-aged man approaches our table and chats with Fraya and Schmee, and then he asks Fraya to hold up her hand.

He flicks his lighter and explores the shadows of her hand before speaking.

"You have...you have a lot of friends. Hundreds of friends.  Everyone likes you. Everyone loves you and they believe in you.  Because you're a great person, no really, you're an awesome person and you're smart and you can do great things and you believe you can do great things, but you don't. I don't know why.  You're...you're kind of going through a hard time right now, a transitional time right now.  But things are going to get better.  Yeah.  Things are going to get better soon, very soon."

We oooo and aaaahhhh appropriately over his foresight seeing as Fraya is unemployed and looking for a job (Editor's Note: She has one now.  Hooray!).  Then Schmee jumps in. "Please do me! Do me do me do me!"

He smiles.  "Yeah of course.  Are you right or left handed?"

"Right."

"Okay, gimme your left hand."  The lighter flicks.  He pauses, considering, flicks it once more.  Again he smiles.  "You're a very complicated person."

"Uh oh," Schmee laughs.

"You are.  But you're smart, and you're beautiful, and you have lots of groups of friends from all walks of life and you can fit in with any group of people, it doesn't matter what they're like or anything.  People think you're amazing and you blow people's minds.  Every day.  And someday soon someone is going to blow your mind, and that's good.  Because you deserve it.  You really do." 

"Yeah buddy!" Schmee laughs, and once again, we oooooo and aaahhh over everything.  "How did you learn how to do this?"

He talks about it with honest modesty, how it's a gift or a party trick or something.

After he's finished it's my turn.  "Will you read mine next?"

"Uhhh...sure.  Yeah."  Again, he seems nervous.  Or is that me? I'm terrified he's going to tell me I'm ordinary, that I don't belong amongst the company of these two women, two of my best friends who are obviously giant shining stars among the dust.  He's going to tell me I'll be alone forever because I only have friends out of pity since I'm so fucking abrasive, boring, everything about me is unremarkable and unworthy, I'm a beast, a pest, I'm a rhinoceros, a fruit fly, I'm a fearsome nuisance--

In this second before he takes my hand I know this is what he thinks. I absolutely do not trust this man, this wee little fiend, and I fucking hate him for what he's about to do to me because he's wrong and he's a shitty little liar and he's a shitty little man.  My skin is daggers.

"Come on, Rassles.  Blow my mind," Schmee giggles.  I blink, breathe.  Okay.

He studies my hand with his lighter and sighs.  "You...you aren't as dramatic as you pretend to be.  You feel things differently.  And you're always right.  Your instincts are always right--"

"Oh, fuck, don't tell her that," Schmee groans and laughs.

"She knows that already," Fraya says, and rattles off her favorite quote of mine, something I said to her when we were 18: "And don't argue with me because I'm right, and people are always more content when they think they're right."

He nods before he continues.  "And people should listen to you, but they don't.  You don't even listen to you.  And...I don't know if it's how you were raised, or if something happened that made you this way, but a lot of you is hidden behind walls.  But you're very strong, and you're going to be fine.  People are not close to you.  They think they are, but even your best friends don't really know you."

"I would agree with that." 

"Yeah. But you're...um...you're going to be fine.  You're very strong.  You're going to be fine.  Yeah.  You're gonna be okay.  You're gonna be fine.  You're strong and you're gonna be fine."

If this fucking jester of spider legs and suck says "you're gonna be fine" one more fucking time I am going to break him in half.  I don't need him to remind me that I'm going to be fine, of course I'm going to be fine.  I'm me.  But I don't want to be fine.  I want to be startled and impressed. 

Okay, little man.  I get it.  Thanks for your help.

I must get off my ass and learn to let people surprise me.


...

It's Fine.

This is Part 9 of the Wir Gehen Nach Deutschland series, which is, apparently, a series now, because I just called it a series, just now, and there are eleven of them, which is bonkers.

Part 1: Fashion Scarves in Fucking Charge

Part 2: Predictable

Part 3: Noishenvantengutencastlestein v. Hitler's Casino

Part 4: Beating Hitler at His Own Game

Part 5: Inhale

Part 6: After the Fox

Part 7: Like Mountain

Part 8: But You Know. Sweden.

Part 9: It's Fine

Part 10: Kiss Off

 Part 11: Red Man Says Nein

 
Anyway, back in Sweden...

The paw prints scatter down the castle stairs.

"Kitty!" MoLinder pounds after them and Katsisch and I follow, tracking the trail into a darkened room full of slithering shadows.  A series of decayed shuttered windows creep over the walls, each one opening with a scream or a scrape, lazily hiding pictures of Swedish children's nightmares.

Rat silhouettes scurry across the base of a wall.  In the distance, another room, I hear terrified shrieks, the slicing and meaty splat of a guillotine.

"What the fuck kind of children's museum is this?" I ask. To no one, really.  I'm just asking, you know.  The world.

Add caption

The paw prints lead to a series of backlit etchings, and the cat's words narrate each one in turn: beaked Plague Doctors roamed the streets of Malmo in 1710, administering crap hack treatments and usually contracting the plague themselves; dogs and cats were drowned and murdered unceremoniously, believed to be plague carriers; with no predators, the resulting surge of the rat population happily inflamed the festering outbreak for four years, eventually killing more than a third of the population of Malmo.

It never occurred to me, even in all of the places I've been - including twelve countries that barely survived the Black Death - it never occurred to me until this moment that there once was a plague upon a place I have stood.  Suddenly I feel very indulged and spoiled, but tragically so. 

I hear my sister scream.

Wuss, I think as her scream morphs into laughter, riddled with the guillotine slices and shrieks and MoLinder's low, gasping giggles.  MoLinder plans on fucking with me as well, I'm sure of it, and I'm startled anyway when she gets her chance.

The thundering shink of the guillotine is louder in the next room, probably because you can lay down on a bloody chopping block. I look up.  Hundreds of black paper skeletons dangle by the neck from the ceiling, fluttering around a glinting blade. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?' I say softly, staring. English translations of the exhibits are sporadic, and this room offered none at all.  A screen on the wall was playing some documentary in Swedish, which I obviously couldn't understand.  The modern castle star-wiped into photos and then drawings of the past, showing a layout of the dungeons and the Dalby Gallows Hill outside, where prisoners and vagrants were whipped, and I giggled.

 ...

Because one time I was wandering in Printer's Row and I found a risque little leather book called Flagellation and the Flagellants: A History of the Rod in All Countries, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. It was a brilliant thing, published in like the 1870s.  I couldn't afford the $200 copy in my hand, but I sat in a corner and skimmed it for awhile, soaking in the subtle comedy, learning all I could about the medical, disciplinary, and erotic history of flogging. 

"The line between pain and pleasure is as thin as the tail of a whip."
...

I run my hands over the walls.  During the Renaissance this place was a fortress.  Eventually another wall was built around Malmo, and this building served as citadel.  After that it became a castle.  And after it was a castle, it was a prison. Now a museum.  So much history in here, I think, tracing a pattern onto the wall with my finger, yeah...so...this is not the original wall.  Stop touching it like you can feel its memories or something. Okay. 

"Ross.  Ross.  RASSLES.  Get over here.  Have you read these?"

Thankful to be distracted, I bolt to MoLinder, who's standing in front of a fake door of a jail cell and reading something from out of a drawer.

"Dude.  Read this.  It's so fucked up.  And dude...watch." She peers through the barred window, triggering motion sensors.  A recording launches of a man's maniacal laugh and thud of an axe, the sound of splattering blood - through the window, a shadow passes over a white wall streaked with dark, thick red.

Similar doors are spaced throughout the room, with their own drawerful of stories and freaky deaky sound effects of birds screaming and crying babies.  Next to each door is a hole in the wall filled with random questionable items.  Like mice.

We couldn't see inside some of the holes, and as I have a fear of sticking my hand in things, I was petrified. Is there a name for that?  The fear of sticking your hand into the unknown?

I stand in front of one of the crudely cut holes and shove my camera inside, taking picture after picture to create a panoramic view of everything that lives in the hidey-hole.

"Just stick your hand in there," Katsisch teases. 

I brace myself and stretch my fingers, reaching slowly into the hole, and snatch my hand back fast because something is totally going to grab me, and I don't know if it's MoLinder or if it's someone who is paid to grab people that are scared of putting their hands into dark holes or what, but I knew my shit would get grabbed and I would probably cry.  

But I was laughing, and trying to take pictures of the inside of the hole so I could assure myself that nothing was in there, that nothing was going to slip over my hand and pull or knaw or drill into my marrow, and as I was freaking out and Katsisch was laughing MoLinder stomped over and jammed her hand into the damn thing.

"There is nothing in there," she said, and I'd never seen a braver thing in my life.   "It's fine."

We kept wandering through the prison, and then the trail of paw prints ended with the silhouette of a cat. So we kept walking, and then we were in an art museum, and then we were in a clothing design exhibit, and then we were in an aquarium, and then we were in a historical Swedish furniture display (until Ikea), and then we were surrounded by taxidermied white reindeer doused in glitter, and then we were in an HIV room, and then there was a suit of armor dangling from the ceiling by its neck, and then we were in a modern art exhibit about how humans are pigs, and then we were in a room stocked with live bats and scorpions. 

But I will leave you with this, with one of the most fucked up things I've read in a children's museum.

Prisoner No. 14, 1896

Bength Nilsson, known as "The Chicken Man"

Born 7/1/1841, sentenced on 8/9/1876 to life imprisonment with hard labor, for incest and illicit sexual relations

Bengt Nilsson bought chickens from the farms and sold them in town.

There were also fine-looking women on the farms. He could bandy words with them and squeeze them when he got the chance, but they were always on their guard.  But there were lots of little girls around...

Bengt knew how to attract and deceive the small, shy blue-eyed creatures. A few of them began to blubber, of course, but when he threatened to give them a good thrashing, or boxed their ears once or twice, they kept quiet about what was going on.

And then of course, he always had his daughter, Nilla, at home.  She never denied him. A few times he had to threaten to take one of her sisters instead, and then she was more than happy to make herself available to him.  Four children were the unhappy result, though thank goodness two did not live long. 

Is he not fully within his rights to take possession of what is his?

...

Sticking Your Hand Into Things Is Very Scary

Before I continue onward with the story of the Malmohus, the greatest museum in all of Scandanavia, I must tell a seemingly unrelated back story.

On Halloween weekend in first grade two important things happened to me.

First, I saw Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, and I watched Mace gingerly stick his hand into a tree to pet the adorable little fluffy guy AND A GIANT TREE MONSTER SWALLOWED HIS ARM AND OH MY FUCK. As a girl who touched everything, this was...the goddamn worst.

Second, the next night I went trick-or-treating.

I was a cheerleader that year, I remember, because my cousin Beth was a real cheerleader.  In high school.  I desperately wanted to be like my cousin Beth (I wore her ten-year-old hand-me-downs until I was thirteen, although not by choice) because she played soccer and she was beautiful. When she learned I adored her she was thrilled and started trying shove her damn old ass Barbies down my throat.

Not much later I realized my allegiance to her was tepid, at best, and that I really wanted to be like my cousin Tony, who taught me how to play poker.

Anyway, so I was dressed as a cheerleader and trick-or-treating, and on one porch a cloaked skeleton sat on swing, holding a small, half-opened picnic basket.  I remember giggling up the path to the porch, shaking Beth's actual pompoms (so cool), running ahead of my dad and my little sister. 

The swing creaked ever so slightly, the black cloak shifted eerily in the night breeze. I paused and watched. Was it real?  My dad walked up with a three-year-old Katsisch. He held her hand as they approached the dark figure, and she blushed, face half hidden, before reaching up high, as high as should could, and bravely plunging her hand into the unknown depths of the basket, dragging out a handful of candy and retreating to the safety of my dad arms.  "I did it!" Katsisch shouted, triumphant.  My dad praised her courage.

I stopped dead when I realized what was going on.  What I had to do. The dark figure nodded, imperceptively.  No, it couldn't have.  But it did, oh it did.  I whimpered.

My dad was instantly encouraging, urging me forward, but I shook my head and fought off the frightened tears, because no, didn't he see?  Didn't he know?  It was calling to me, luring me with sweets, that dead, terrible skeletal thing, with its cabalistic eyes and it's cloak of living darkness, and while my dad's back was turned, the skeleton's curved chin dipped and it looked at me, it looked right fucking at me I swear to fucking god, and I cried, I didn't want to go over there, I knew what would happen, I didn't want to go...

But my dad told me to be brave, and see? Katsisch did it and she was fine, it would be okay, just go over there.

I dropped my pom pom and my bucket of candy and took one last look at my dad, pleading.  He smiled, assured me the skeleton wasn't real, that nothing would happen.  I knew he was was wrong.  But I had to do this.  I had to get my own damn candy.  I had to do it myself.

Resolved, I crept slowly towards the swing, the skeleton, and the mysterious basket that promised so many wonderful and terrible things.  As I inched closer I peered into its sinister picnicky basket depths and saw nothing but Snickers, but sinister picnicky baskets held by cloaked skeletons must have dark powers, powers I couldn't even imagine.  Slowly I lifted my arm, hovering above the open basket.  After a long, slow, contemplative second I looked up at the face of the skeleton and breathed. I couldn't be real, I thought.  But still, I had to be quick.  I had to be so fast.  I had to be so, so, fast.

My hand darted into the basket and the skeleton lurched, snatched my wrist like a striking python with its cold, dead fingers, and rasped, "No, pretty girl." 

Boy howdy did I fucking scream.

I smashed my little fists into the skeleton as hard as I could but it had already let me go, and and I was crying and the skeleton was laughing and then saying it was sorry, and then it wasn't a skeleton at all, it was a teenage boy wearing a mask, and I just hit and kicked him in the shins, hard, and ran away to the safety and the shadows of the trees. Other trick-or-treaters were laughing down the street, those dummies, they didn't know about real things, like skeletons and monsters that hurt your hand.

Back up on the porch, my dad was laughing his ass off, congratulating the boy on a prank well pulled. He actually believed the skeleton was a fake, he said, over and over again, obviously impressed.  Katsisch smeared her face into his shoulder.  The boy apologized to my dad, who laughed and told him not to worry, and the boy tried to call out to me I yelled that I hated him, and cried harder. 

My dad hugged me to make sure I was fine, and then dragged me back over to the porch to apologize to the boy for hitting him because it wasn't very nice, who wasn't really so scary when he wasn't hiding under a hood with a dumb mask on, and I told him so.  He grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head.  My dad nudged me forward.  I apologized, tears running down my face.  The boy stuck out his hand for me to shake it and I buried my face in my dad's side.  But my dad wasn't having it, so I shook the boy's dumb hand and jumped away, refusing to accept any of his dumb candy, because it was dumb.

...

Lies I Have Told

After reading this, I've decided it's time.

It's time to write the blog post I have been putting off for years.  Because no one wants to read this.  Go ahead, stop reading.  But I have to do it and I have to do it now.  It's not a big deal, or anything terrible.  But I need to do it for...let's say therapy.

...

My freshman year of college I lied a lot to fit in, which is a good explanation of why it was so hard for me to make friends.

Here, I thought, here I can tell people I have had boyfriends, because everyone cares about boyfriends. Of course I'd never had a boyfriend.  Or a date.

In high school, I was one of those girls who never got asked to a dance.  At fourteen I just asked guys myself.  One dance, I took my friend Dan and he spent the night looking forlornly at other girls and being disinterested, and I realized he didn't want to be there with me, which blew my fucking mind because I thought I was awesome.

Three years later Steve called me an hour before prom to bail and buy drugs.  I was murderous.  I asked him because my 'best friend' Jon - who I spent years blocking from my memory, who had my undying puppy love, who could ask anything of me, who had to have known how much craved him - he told me - and I hate talking about this - he told me he wouldn't go with me because, and I quote, "Well, Rass, you won't impress anyone.  I need to go with...I need to go with a woman."

Holy fuck.

Anyway, so when people asked freshman Rassles about high school, I told them I just broke up with someone. It felt true enough.  I also told them things like, "Well, of course, I could have had sex, but I just haven't found the right guy" which is what all virgins say, but it wasn't true.  No one ever tried.

...

I didn't drink my freshman year of college because I thought it was stupid and I had important shit to study so I could be a veterinarian.  Making friends was hard, so I would go to parties by myself and try to meet people.

But people, especially boys, will not talk to sober 18 year old girls.

Sometimes I would just go to a party and buy a solo cup and pretend I had beer. I wanted to fit in so badly.  I tried very hard to pretend to listen to the music everyone seemed to be obsessed with.  I become a Dave Matthews Band fan, an Aerosmith fan, a Jimmy Buffet fan.  I really, really tried. I lied and said my dad took me to a Jimmy Buffet concert once.  My dad doesn't give a shit about Jimmy Buffet. 

But I learned, slowly, that my classmates didn't trust me.  Not because I lied about going to a Jimmy Buffet concert (seriously, what?) but because I didn't get fucked up.

The few friends I made were wary to invite me to parties and usually were ashamed of me when we got there, but I never understood why.  I spent a lot of time saying, "No, go on, I'll be fine." 

Absolutely no one trusted me when I tried to take care of the hammered girls throwing up all over the bathroom, passing out on toilets while their friends took all of the incorrect steps on dealing with a girl on the verge of alcohol poisoning.  They would get angry at me for helping, tell me I was self-righteous, that they could see how I despised them and they would hoist up their tube tops and stumble in their heels, banging their knees on doorframes, wild-eyed and whammered. I tried to nurse of a lot of girls I didn't know.

Then one day in January, I got those looks and exploded. Crying.  Yelling, "YOU KNOW WHY I DON'T GET DRUNK?" I told them that when I was fourteen I went to a college party, blacked out, woke up in a strange house and vowed never to drink again.

Of course, that never happened.

But it was magic.  I had respect. People approached me at parties.  A lot of, "You know, I thought you just were like weird, you know, I didn't know you been there.  I knew there was something about you.  I could tell there was a bigger story, I could tell you were cool, I knew there was a reason, I'm so sorry you went through that..." 

I never even insinuated - I mean, later I learned - and by later, I mean in 2011 - apparently this story morphed into "Rassles got drunk and was raped when she was fourteen."  Which is annoying, but I guess kind of predictable.  Only one person ever asked me that many details, and I told her I didn't remember. 

But people seemed to genuinely care about me.  Only after they thought I was special.  I really resented a lot of them for it. 

Then I came clean to a couple friends years later, and they were all like, "so what? who fucking cares if you lied when you were 18?  We were all assholes" which was awesome.

...

Sometimes I think that lie was the worst decision I ever made.  Because of that I lie, I pledged a sorority. Because of that sorority, I didn't transfer schools, I stopped wanting to be a doctor, I started drinking and smoking cigarettes and turned into a general asshole. But I loved every terrible, mood-swinging minute of it.

During pledging, we had to run.  A lot.  And on the first day of running I fell, and a swarm of sorority banshees surrounded me, heckling (Were you born a fat, slimy, scumbag puke piece o' shit, Private Pyle, or did you have to work on it?) and I was pissed, I couldn't fucking believe the garbage they were screaming (I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you!) who the ruddy fuck do these ogre harpies think they are, they can go fuck a fencepost for all I care, these (you had best square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up) bone-faced cumdumpsters, I hate them, I hate them...and I yelled that my knee, my knee, oh, my knee...I don't have any cartilage in my knee, I can't run anymore, which shut them up real fucking quick, but was also a lie.

They never even let me try to run after that, whenever I asked, probably because they were afraid I would get seriously hurt, and then the school would kick them out for hazing.  But I felt guilty, I was terrified of not fitting in, I watched my pledgemates run and stumble and endure, I berated myself to sleep and swore that for the next five weeks I would do everything perfectly, that I would help everyone however I could, that I would come clean...

That's the problem with lies.  People are so darn nice about them.  They're so understanding, so worried, so genuine.  

I never did tell them the truth.  This sorority booted liars.  They kicked two of them out of my pledge class.  But they would have kicked me out, I have no doubt.  They had no patience for people who couldn't cut it.  None.  So I just let it go.  

...

Oh, it feels nice getting all of these twelve year old lies on the internet.

...

Things That Are Sad Are Less Depressing When Confronted With Subpar Poetry (Slam!)

The first time I did this it went over well.  To me, at least.  I guess.  I really know nothing about poetry, but rules are bullshit and sometimes I feel like rhyming.  Yes, I know poetry doesn't have to rhyme, silly billy, but everyone should write more rhymes.  I suggest going to the Wikipedia poetry page for more information, because that's what I did. But this time, I have titles. 

I. So Hot Out Thurr
in the tenor of summertime smells and degrees
creeping up like a burglar, the colors are wrong
this just feels erroneous without grass and the leaves

birds openly smirk in the sweet-scented breeze
bars and cafes set up seats for a throng
in the tenor of summertime smells and degrees

branches are jigsawing out of the trees
naked and rough, too gray to belong
this just feels erroneous without grass and the leaves

bodies wear green but their clothes are a tease
I know that this weather can't last for too long
in the tenor of summertime smells and degrees

bitches be tryin' to get up on deez
but I'm all, "fuck off" cuz my snow is all gone
this just feels erroneous without grass and the leaves

No one saw this coming except for the bees
winter got robbed of its trembling swan song
in the tenor of summertime smells and degrees
this just feels erroneous without grass and the leaves


II. Dactylic Hexameter Is Really Hard
The other day my sister dropped the terms
dactylic and hexameter, as if
those words were bland cliches to toss and riff.
But in reality, it just confirms:
that casual asides give me the squirms.

It's a sadistic dare to test my skill.
Think I can't write it? CUZ I GODDAMN WILL.
And then I tried, I seriously did.
It's fucking impossible, god forbid
I do something fancy. Get off my grill.


III. Feelings
I wish I could stop listening to this damn song but
its gleeful depression just fondles my soul
the juxtaposition of bullets and lilting
makes the whole story seem out of control

After intense googling, I quickly discovered
that this song was covered by the Grateful Dead.
I wish I could say this fact doesn't surprise me
but my interest in Jerry holds on by a thread.

So this quaint little diddy popped up on Pandora
and the saccharine darkness just jolted my heart.
I played it on repeat and obsessed over lyrics
and cried, nearly silent, though I tried not to start.




...

My Hands are a Little Dirty.

The other night my brain did that thing where I have waking nightmares and sleep paralysis, and I hate that shit.

Right after I graduated from college, during my brief stint in grad school before I realized it was a waste of time and money, three very important things happened:  (1) I got really into The X-Files, (2) I saw The Notebook and realized Ryan Gosling was a crazy, crazy creepo, and (3) I taught myself how to control the action in my dreams. Lucid dreaming is almost automatic for me, but then again that's just the awareness of being in a dream, and not controlling the action.

But sometimes the dream fights back and won't let me take charge, and then it makes fun of me.  It's like my psyche is lashing back over having too much control and starts to fuck with me.  So I will dream about Ryan Gosling, for example, and then my dream will make him speak, and speaking completely defeats the purpose of people like Ryan Gosling, who is not a real person at all.  If he had a voice like, say, LA Confidential-era Russell Crowe or Fabulous Baker Boys-era Jeff Bridges or always-era Paul Newman, things would be different.  But he doesn't.  He speaks like Ryan Gosling, or an audible abusive relationship, which means he always sounds a little bit drunk and kinda pervy and sensitive to the point of serious violence. He's best in photographs with feminist thought bubbles and Drive. 

So Ryan Gosling and dream-Rassles are in an elevator boudoir, and I am like, "Oh, this dream is about to get ab-tastic" and then Ryan Gosling speaks, and dream-Rassles is all, "No good.  Talk like Bruce Willis" and he totally ignores me and smirks and then dream-me is all, "shut UP Ryan Gosling" and Ryan Gosling is all, "u wan me ta shoo urp n hid mer emoshins? Za wah u wan?" and I'm all "YES" and he takes off his shirt and starts to fucking cry, wiping his nose on the bedsheets, and I'm like "How about this - shut your mouth or I'll kick your teeth down your throat and I'll shut it for you" and he smashes a window and starts carving my name into his arm with a giant shard of glass and then he just looks at me.  Like a horny Labrador.  And I'm all "stop eyefucking me, Gosling" and then he gets stigmata and a bunch of Golden Globe nominations.

But that wasn't my nightmare.

For those who aren't familiar with it--during that stretch of time between wakefulness and legit sleep, if you can slide yourself in there...that's how you start actively influencing your dreams.  At least, that's how it works with me.  Usually I have to make the conscious decision before I sleep.

The problem is this: sometimes I don't make the decision and my brain gets switched around, so instead of me consciously controlling the dream, I have no idea I am dreaming and everything is fucking terrifying and more realistic than life.

So the other night I was laying in bed, waiting to fall asleep, when a severed head started throwing up on my stomach, and I was like, "WHAT THE FUCK" but I couldn't move or speak. But then I heard my dog and I strained to move my eyes and just out of the corner I saw a giant fucking Overlord gargoyle beating my dog, alternating between my Louisville Slugger and his rocky fists, and I could hear my dog screaming and I tried to cry and snarl, and then someone started smashing rocks through my bedroom window and the gargoyle like apparated over to me and raised the bat above my head, beating his wings and laughing like a small child, and I was struggling and trying to move because my dog was still alive and I knew I needed to kill him and put him out of his misery, he whimpered and sputtered to breathe, and I couldn't fight and fucking kill everything around me, I couldn't do that, and I couldn't cry and I was so, so, so scared, and the vomit was coagulating all around me and slipping down my sides and it smelled like roadkill and old milk and the severed head rolled between my legs.

And I woke up screaming and sweating and yelling, "WHAT THE FU--" and I felt the shadowed gargoyle whisp away, and I felt the bat land on my neck and bounce off my jugular and heard it thwack into my dog and clatter on the ground, and I heard my dog die, I felt my crushed windpipe and the warm vomit and at the "--UCK!" and I woke up, and all was well.  But I was sure it was there.  I was so sure.

I smashed my head into the wall behind me, and I started crying. 

I walked over to the corner and picked up my bat, which was resting nicely where it lives. And I carried it around my apartment and I looked in every single corner, because I was sure.  It was there.  I knew it.  But I was clean, and my dog lives with my parents.  I turned on all of the lights.  No one was there.  I took a shower.  I got dressed and walked around the block with the bat.  When I got home I watched Drive.  Twice.

Now, I know it's sleep paralysis.  I'm familiar with it.  But can't my brain come up with something less sinister? Some people just imagine a monkey sitting there at the foot of the bed, but no, with me it's all baffing severed heads and dog-murdering gargoyles. I wrote this letter:

Dear My Brain,
Please stop being so scary. You are not helping.
Regards, Me

I've been grinding my teeth for days.  It hurts my jaw and my head.  And it's like, why can't my paralyzing dreams be of Ryan Gosling?  I don't mind his voice that much.  I swear.

...

Debates for the Universe

Is there a God? Why is it that when you slice a seashell in half, you find math inside? Why can't I start working at noon as I am not a farmer? Does a man really want a woman with a sense of humor, or does he just want a woman who laughs at his jokes? Who is the sadist that keeps on airing those ASPCA commercials?

When did irony stop functioning as a rhetorical device and become a cultural slogan for sloppy contrast? Who steals my pens when I'm not at my desk? Are dragons real? Chickens and eggs, which came first? Who is the most important musical figure since the inception of Rock and Roll: Elvis, Les Paul, or the Beatles as a cheeky whole? Why does everyone buy Puffs and still call it Kleenex?

Who coined the phrase "throw you under the bus"?  Where do they live?  Is it near a bus stop?  Why do people repeat that phrase when it makes no sense and sounds fucking idiotic?  Why are potato stems useless? How many apple seeds can you eat before you feel the effects of the cyanide? How is it statistically possible that I am undefeated in air hockey (Holla)?

Does anyone ever enjoy a Hollywood reboot? When did rope become irrelevant? How did Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup become a proven placebo cure-all for everything bad ever ever?  How did I get so close to one set of grandparents and retain such antipathy for the other? Fucking magnets, how do they work?  Which is better: quality or nostalgia; sub-question: So which is the best Weezer album?

My grandpa died last night.  This one.   I am sad.  My grandmother, from the other side of the family, passed away about a month and a half ago.  I was not nearly as sad.  Oh, I really want to get drunk. 

...

CK Dexter Haven, Either I'm Gonna Sock You or You're Gonna Sock Me

Because I am nonpareil at dental hygiene and less important things like making giant balls of cheap rubber bands and reusing the same piece of tape over and over and over again, two habits which directly correlate to this story because they portray my determination to accomplish mundane tasks with pride and drama, last Thursday I was flossing and trying to get at them pesky back teeth and I totally I dislocated my jaw.

My jaw clicks.  It always has.  When it clicked open that morning I didn't think much of it, but I did have some flashes of thought like, "I am so awesome at flossing" and "I'll bet my mouth-opening abilities could rival that of the Burmese Python, 20-foot terror of the Asian jungle" and then I tried speaking in Parseltongue and learned that my mouth couldn't close.  It hurt like fuck.

I stood there gaping, trying to ease my mouth shut, but I couldn't bite down and it felt like someone lit a hedgehog on fire and wedged it into my temporomandibular joint (Dear Version-2001 of Professor DeWitt: like I said, I don't need your 8:30am anatomy classes for shit and your ponytail is stupid).  Sure, I could close my lips and pucker (thank god, with all my daily smooching), but my teeth weren't flush.  In fact, the upper row of teeth couldn't meet the lower at all.

But I was late to work, so I just powered through it.  Finished the morning routine and fucked around with my jaw for awhile on the bus.  My speech was fine, and when I was wiggling my jaw around and just sitting there it didn't hurt at all.  But I still sat at my desk for hours and tried to strain my teeth together, massaging my cheek, hoping to grunt things back into place.

This lasted for the better part of the day, until I took my late lunch.  I was only two excruciating bites in when dawned on me:  I cannot chew this Big Beef n' Cheddar without medical assistance. 

After some intense googling, I learned that I could probably force my jaw back into place, and all those silly people on the internet who were all "go to a doctor immediately" were amateurs, because it really wasn't that bad, right?  It only hurt when I tried to chew, or like, move.  Granted it felt like someone was slowly ripping my ear off - but I wasn't bleeding or swelling or bruising.

So I when to the bathroom I made sure I was alone, because I didn't want anyone watching me abusively magic my jaw back into place.    I grabbed my lower mandible, fingers wrapped around my teeth, palm cupping my chin, and opened my mouth as wide as possible, like the queen of the Alien brood, but way scarier because she had my eyes, that bitch.

I breathed deep.  It was time.  My sandwich was getting cold.  I raised my right fist, closed my eyes, counted to twelve (YOU FUCKING SALLY, JUST DO IT ON THREE), yanked my jaw down hard and punched myself in the face, right on the jawline.

And then I screamed.  

But a few seconds later I opened my eyes.  Wriggled my jaw around, which was pleasantly clicking like normal, and I bit my teeth together, which were clacking like normal. A bit strained, but normal.  I traced one finger along my jaw to make sure everything felt right and good, and you know what?  I AM THE FUCKING BOSS. My skills as a de-dislocator are legendary.  Fucker popped right back into place, just like it was supposed to.  Keep that bitch in line with sock to the jaw.

It's been five days, and despite a few raging headaches, everything is hunky dory.  My life is perfect. I fucking hate doctors.



...

I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.

day 19 - a song from your favorite album  

Picking my favorite album isn't very hard.  Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, easy peasy lemon squeezy.  Makes me pissed at the world, giddy because I get the joke, longing for romance, relieved at my self-sufficiency, cheated out of peace, serenely relaxed, embarrassed by my capriciousness, guilty for being selfish, impressed by my personal complexity, and giggling at the ridiculousness of everything.  It spoke to me at what, sixteen?  Yeah.  I'm still a bit shocked every time I hear it. 

I was loitering at Record Swap, listening in on those music guys talking music.  Back then, in high school, I was in love with up to seventeen boys simultaneously and most of them never spoke to me, but half of them hung out at Record Swap and I would go there after work at Cock Robin or Bookzellers or wherever I worked that day and just meander and listen to them talk about music.  Then I would walk over towards them with my purchase, and one of them would slip off the counter and ring me up on the register.  We never made eye contact.  They never showed any recognition, not here or at school, and neither did I.    

My shift would end and I would decide to walk over there, thinking, Today.  Today I'm going to talk to them.  And I'm going to say, "Hey, I heard (some band) is playing (somewhere) on Sunday.  I think I saw you at their last show at Off the Alley" or something cool like that but I never did.  

So yeah, I was loitering at Record Swap and browsing when I heard them talking about me.

"Dude, does she ever buy anything?"

"Sometimes."

"Don't think I've ever seen it.  It's weird."  

"She usually gets like stuff like my dad likes." 

"She's like always here."

"I think she works next door."

"Oh."  There's a pause, and I pretend to be fascinated by the back cover of something, glowing that I am the topic of their conversation.  Do they think I can hear them?  Probably not.  "I think she just comes here because you make her wet."

Okay, that is...the fuck? I crack my jaw a couple of times while he giggles at himself.

"Dude."  Other guy drops his voice.  "I hope not."

My arms tighten up and I lock my knees, just staring straight ahead at the wall, while "dude I hope not" echoes over and over and over again in my mind.  I knew it.  I fucking knew it. I am repulsive.  I blame my mother.  Now I am FURIOUS.  I take a few deep breaths squeeze my fists, which is counterproductive but whatever, and decide I'm going to say something.  I am going to go over there and let them know I can hear them.  I'm going to give them a fucking lashing. 

With a devil grip on whatever's in my hand and the resolve of carpet-stain remover, I make my way towards the register, head high.  I glare at both of them.  They are just...so...fucking...hot. We could have been friends, I think. We really could.  I was sure they were different. I was sure that they would recognize we had a common interest in music that would last us years in conversations and banter, I was sure that one of them was about to say to the other, "but she's kind of cute, you know?" and I was sure I would get near them and they would laugh and call me over and say, "Come on, we know you heard us.  We've been trying to get your attention for months" and I was sure one of them would say "but my girlfriend would kill me if I talked to another girl" and I was sure I could go over there all coy and smile at them and say, " Just this please.  Doesn't-" I look down at whatever I'm holding "-Bob Dylan get you all wet?"  Bob Dylan?  Where did I pick this up?  Shit.  Come on boys.  Give me something.  Please.  Just help me.  Just a little.  Please.

Please?

Nothing, they just pretend they don't see me and I pretend I don't see them and that I'm not buying anything today and I walk right out the door clutching this fucking album that I pulled from the Classics section.  Stolen album.

It's much easier to be brave on behalf of others than on behalf of myself.

Looking back I don't think I could have stolen anything better.  After that I started scooping up Mr. Zimmerman like candy, and I would feel small and I would cry and I would feel overwhelmed and I would laugh.  Sometimes people give me shit for being a huge Bob Dylan fan. Inevitably, someone will just tell me about how much he sucks live, as if seeing an icon growl and sputter at 70 years old (a) makes them an expert on anything and (b) will convince me to reject a musical catalog spanning a full fifty years.

Not gonna lie though, all I want to do after listening to this song is stroll down a sunny street on a weekday, fantasize about guys that don't return my affections, smoke too many cigarettes and throw bottles at abandoned houses, thankful to be alive.



...

I Know You'll Never Get Tired of Me. I Hope It Never Ends.

Two parts in one day because yesterday was reserved for a LOST marathon.

I miss that compulsion to move closer to the TV, that "ssshhhhhh sshshhshshs it's back on" after every commercial break, I miss being dangerously invested in the characters. LOST was the best kind of addiction. It never let me down or left me disappointed. I trusted LOST more than I trusted my friends. Someday I will learn to believe I deserve to be invested in my own life instead.


Days 3 and 4, Songs that make you happy and sad, respectively.


First, the happy.




When I first moved to Chicago, my roommate and I used to sing this song to each other. I hadn't been away from home since college, and Xtine was a friend I made due to our mutual love for live band karaoke.

Xtine was (IS) a packrat. She saved everything and kept it on display, making tiny shoebox dioramas of trinkets and junk that we stapled all over the walls of the apartment. Puddle-foot army men gunning down tiny plastic horses from vending machines against a backdrop of old band fliers, a forest of metal jacks and finger monsters amidst dangling Korean key chains, a mosaic of Garbage Pail Kid cards behind a collection of dried roses, Happy Meal toys and one-hitters. Our apartment was a disaster of ashtrays, DVDs, tampons, spools of thread, half-finished glasses of wine, bras and high heels. We had a giant filing cabinet in our kitchen full of clothes and bottles of whiskey and bolts of fabric, and there were always instruments lying around. Whenever we sat down on the couch we'd have to shove over the keyboard and old bags of take-out. It always smelled like cigarettes and booze and hair dye. We spilled a jar of beads one week after I moved in and I still find them in corners, just after I'm sure I tracked down the last one.

We cleaned together about three times in two years. Usually I cleaned. It drove me bonkers, but I knew what I was getting into when I moved in. But whenever we did clean Xtine would pop on her iTunes, and we would sing.

I was so happy when she cleaned with me. Plus, you know. This song is awesome.


And now, the Sad.



THIS SONG MAKES ME FUCKING LOSE IT.

Fox and the Hound is probably the most depressing movie of all time because its message is so simple and pessimistic: you can't be friends with people who are different than you.

I can say with confidence that most of my friends are very different, but everyone is different, really. I don't believe in the mindless masses. Some people just make their differences more obvious.

In the end the things my friends all have in common are drinking, a penchant for the ridiculous, and storytelling. We tell good stories. We tell stories about shit we've done and about shit we want to do. We make boring stories sound exciting, and exciting stories sound better. We're at our best sitting around with booze and memories and the friends we make that stick around are the same.

I know this isn't a unique trait, but it's what brings us together. Some people bond over sports teams, loving their children, hating their boss, music, skiing, sex, neighborhoods, politics, fashion, LOST. We tell stories and we rarely run out of them.

And when that changes it's sad. When someone decides they've told enough stories and it's time to move on to children or work, I understand, even though I can't see anything but stories being my priority. But when their priorities shift to the extent that it pulls us apart, I think of this song and I cry.

...

I Am Stronger Than Professionalism

This is just a little gripe, a horrible bullshit whiny nancy move and I probably shouldn't even post it but I'm in desperate need of validations right now: lately I've been pissed as shit at all the liars out there that put fantasies into my head. Confidence in my abilities does not look good on me. It's so much easier to drag through life knowing I suck at everything than it is to keep putting effort into dreams and getting shot down.

I mean, I'm going to keep on trying to get paid to write. I won't stop. But you know those people out there that say 'you have to believe you can do it or you never will' and all those fucking false, uppity, horsefeathery ideas that they drip into the ears of failures so they'll blame their mindset instead of their ability? I love what they're trying to do here, but sometimes a little honesty would be nice. "You don't have the skill or likability to do this professionally, Ross. Don't give up. Just face reality: most people are better at this than you are."

But I can't have any illusions here, as if I was some sort of scribbling savant shouldering a muse. If I could pick a muse, it would probably be Calliope and that's not just because I was Calliope in the eighth grade school play which I totally co-wrote, by the way. We sang I love I love my Mount Olympian girls to Calendar Girl and my line was, "Calliope: her good guys always win" and then I narrated the stories of Theseus slaying the evil Medusa where Theseus was an aspiring hairdresser, and of Perseus and the Minotaur where Perseus was a pizza delivery guy, and therefore an expert on topography and the psychology of space. It was so much easier to get your shit into the world in eighth grade. In eighth grade I was an epic, comedic genius.

But now, apparently, I am too "edgy." I lack "professional" knowledge of a topic (how much more professional can you get to write about cult classics than working at a fucking video store and rating like 4,000 movies on Netflix? Really? You want some pap smear with a film degree? Fucking bogus). That's the big thing, really. I lack the professionalism, experience, background,

Why don't they just say they don't like my writing? Dicks. I understand that my business writing skills are bullshit. I know. I'm too self-referential and when I eliminate first-person it sounds stiff and elitist and fuck.

There are people out there who believed in me and asked me write things for them, and I've fucked up every single one of those. I would lose sleep over it. Friends need band bios, or website copywriting, they give me ideas for short stories and they're so inspirational and wonderful for trusting me and my ability to promote and portray something so important to them. And I'll agree and get excited and sit down to write, because I know that this time I fucking got this. I'm hopeful, confident that I'll pull something sparkly and whimsical and excellent. I know I will, because someone I care about trusted me to do it.

I'll start typing and by word three it's just a fucking document wasteland, and eventually becomes some variation of, "You goddamn useless piece of shit, why can't you just write like all of the normal people in the world? Get it done. You can do this. If Stephanie Meyer can write a series of books, you can write a band bio. People love your writing. You had a fan club. Why are you such a fucking cumbucket of spider legs and suck, you fat, worthless, disgusting thing?" Then I cry, smack myself around. Sit in the bathroom and pull my hair like a bratty child without candy, do a red-faced mirror pep talk to snap out of it and notice how horrible the lighting is in that bathroom, and then I cry again because who could ever love someone so self-loathing?

Shit, this is depressing. I should not post this, but I have to. Otherwise I'm going to just stare at the draft every day and I'll never resolve anything. I need to just let the internet deal with my incompetence because I am not emotionally capable of handling it on my own. And this blog was always about stories and honesty. Breathe.

This post began as a pledge letter for work. I was drafting a letter and it mutated into a blog post about how I have writers block unless I'm writing about me. Do you see what I mean?

Shit. Shitshitshit.

...

Nostalgia

I've found that whenever I feel like I've been sewn together from incompatible parts, I just boldly emphasize the utter weakness of stuff that holds me together in the most confrontational way possible. Suddenly, for the first time like ever, I'm starting to think that aggressive transparency is kind of unhealthy because I'm constantly reminding myself of my mediocrity. I guess I just figure it's better not to lie about it, right, and make sure everyone knows right away how average I am.

But I think pointing out how mediocre I am all the time is the lie, because I know I'm not average and mediocre. I know I am different, because people treat me differently than they treat other people. This isn't a scale of better or worse, it doesn't involve ethics, health, likability or any of that. It's just that sometimes I make people nervous, and sometimes people think everything about me is a fucking joke.

And sometimes I come to shocking realizations about my effect on people, because I keep on having conversations with dudes where they express interest in courtship immediately followed by mentioning their own very serious psychological disorders.

...

Solitaire

"No, don't eat anything," I say. "You don't need to. Anything. You are just refilling your water and that is it." I plunge myself towards the kitchen, swimming. "And getting ice. Be glad you don't live in a fucking swamp." Fill up my glass and open the freezer, quickly grabbing the top ice cube tray and spilling slushy, half frozen water all over myself. I sigh and look down.

"FUCK. That feels glorious. Leave the water on the floor. You don't give a fuck, no you don't. You know who gives a fuck? Doesn't matter. Not you. Get ice cubs," I crack a second, frozen tray, "and get the fuck out of here." I open the freezer again to put them back and my hand tickles a heavy sealed bag. "Unless you am eatin' them fucking ice cream diblets," I snatch the bag and slam the freezer door. "Them're acceptable. Spiritually and physically. In fact, might as well finish 'em. Ain't wrong with that. Your stomache's all grumblypantsy and you're a stupid bitch either way. Ice cream heals everything but heartache."

The bag won't open. "Fuckin sticky frozen horseshit," I say, and angrily gut it open with a carving knife and pop three of those little things in my mouth. "Okay. Don't do that shit again. And then tomorrow, you will ride your new bike. Clandestine bikes are no good, they must be ridden, you farthead. Even if it's hot. Yes, even if it's hot, because velocity craps wind. Seriously. If you don't there will be shmonsequences. Speaking of hot: do not dutch oven yourself tomorrow morning. That's for the winter." There aren't a lot of the ice cream dibs left in the bag. They're gone quickly. I stare at inside the empty bag and consider licking the chocolate lingering on the palm of my hand, and look around to make sure there are no hidden cameras in my kitchen. I stare at my hand and jam it under the sink faucet, convinced that someone in the world can see me. "Okay. Go back to the lazy boy. Don't forget your water. You will pass the Mystic Cave Zone on the first try, why? Because you are not a sally. You are...well, you're not sally."

I walk down my dark hallway, pausing at the closed door to the empty second bedroom. I have to work in seven hours. But first I have to beat Sonic 2, and before that I have important doorknobs to ponder.

I stare at the doorknob. "You are not a sally. You are stronger than Dr. Robotnik, you will free woodland creatures and collect the chaos emeralds, and you are not as lonely as you think you are."

I look away from the door and start walking back over to my lazyboy. "Also, while you're at it? Talk to yourself more. It's extremely sexy and all the rage in France."

...

In Which I am a Super Brat

The first time I went to Ireland, it was an adventure. I met up with a friend from college who'd been playing rugby in Newcastle all summer (I love saying that. It makes me feel bastardly urbane). We went to the pony races and drank and gambled, we tried to hitchhike across the countryside in Kerry (we failed). We stripped while running into the ocean on the Dingle peninsula and fought a group of raging Irishmen at a bar in Dublin because they called me a "feisty filly" and basically had a brilliant, drunken time. It was very tense and masculine and obnoxious. Very Hemingway.

Okay, I didn't strip running into the ocean, because apparently my recklessness chokes on puritanical horseshit. But he did, my friend. I rolled up my pants like a fucking champ and took pictures.

This time around I was with my family instead of friends. First vacation the Rossi Family has taken, just the five of us, in ten years. Sure, we did Vegas when the Yellavitch turned 21, but that was like this big fat extended family thing, and the grandkids all split from the older generations for most of the trip.

So when my parents decided that they wanted to take us to Ireland, we were excited because you know, fucking Ireland. I felt spoiled at first, being 29 and having my parents take me Europe, but I justified it eventually with a thick list of trembling excuses that basically added up to one thing: who cares, you're going to fucking Ireland.

Okay, so I'm still a little uncomfortable with the fact that my parents took me on vacation. I offered to pay my way. They refused.

Last year, my parents left the US for the first time in their lives and took a tour around Italy. It stirred this deep, tour-obsessed Goliath within The Dad, who declared he would never travel without a tour ever again. I spent weeks explaining that Ireland was different from Italy, Dad, you don't want to be constrained on a tour there...it's an exploring kind of place, not a museums-and-monuments-and-art kind of place.

But being the adamant financial backer, The Dad insisted that I did not know what I was talking about. A tour, he said, would be easier. We wouldn't be responsible for blah and blah and blah, he said, it would all be decided for us.

I accepted. Because fuck yeah, Ireland.

Previously within my family, I was the one who calmed people down with a lame joke or something, because I'm as close as a Rossi gets to the soothing waters of lazy, pastoral relaxation nation. This of course sounds ridiculous to my friends, who all know that I'm neurotic and insecure about everything.

For the first several days I was okay. Even though I was slightly annoyed at being held inside when I wanted to explore, we were let out periodically to stretch our legs and spend money at pre-arranged restaurants and touristy stores. Granted, we probably would have ended up at some of those places whether or not we were on a tour, but that doesn't change the fact that I had a burning, itching yen to pluck my own destinations on whim.

For awhile, I distracted myself by counting cows and befriending some of the senior citizen stocked on the tour bus, but they were only chatty for so long. Eventually all conversations meandered towards my fidgetty eyes, and they would mention offhand that I seemed anxious. As politely as possible, I'd tell them that I wanted to stop in places the bus was tearing through, and they would nod. I'd change the subject. We passed through towns and ruins of towns, and all I wanted to do was jump the hell off that fucking bus and get lost out there.

By the fourth day, when I discovered that we were not going to Skellig (which is on my list) but in fact watching a video at the Skellig museum, I had a minor breakdown. With quiet tears. I tried to keep it in, I really, really did, but holding me captive on a tour bus in a land of cool green hills and beer is like building a cage of lambchops for a muzzled terrier, with a whole lot of whimpering and growling and general pathetic impotence.

So I was on the bus, staring out the window, sniffing.

Katsisch started without looking up. "You okay?"

"I'll be fine." Sniff.

"Obviously you're not fine."

I didn't want her to see my eyes. "I do not want to talk about it."

"You're being a brat, you know," she stated calmly, flipping a page of her book.

"Which is why I shouldn't talk about it."

"Why can't you just enjoy yourself?"

"I am not going to be able to if you don't drop it."

"Why are you acting like such a fucking baby?"

"I'm sorry." I turned and started counting cows out the window. Counting cows was calming, distracting. It kept my brain busy and focused on observation. To properly count cows, you must be moving constantly, scanning the fields. This was the positive side of riding the bus: better for cow counting. Landscape, animals, and math always lead to daydreams. It was a releasing distraction.

Twenty seconds later, Katsisch interrupted my counting. "You know, it's not that big of a deal. So we don't get to go to a stupid monastic island. World's still here."

"Please, I'm embarrassed enough right now." I wiped under my eyes with my sleeve.

"Do you realize how much you are insulting Mom and Dad?"

I snapped. "Do you fucking realize that I am trying to get over this as quickly as fucking possible, and you are not diffusing the fucking situation?"

"Okay, you need to stop being a fucking brat right now. You are completely overreacting, and this is totally inappropriate."

"Maybe if we were actually doing stuff instead of watching the world go by, I could enjoy myself."

"See, this is what I'm talking about," Katsisch hissed, finally glaring up from her book, "you think you're superior because the rest of us don't mind just riding to the next destination that has been chosen for us. Because we do not care. We all know that by complacently sitting on this bus we are not relinquishing our control over destiny. This is a vacation. This is not a metaphor for life."

Awestruck. I opened my mouth, cracking my jaw sideways. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I know that you think you're too 'free-spirited' and 'different' to be willing to just do something so 'mainstream' but you need to get over that insecurity. No one cares except for you."

So apparently the issue at hand, always, in every disagreement I have with anyone, is my distaste for all things 'mainstream.' Do I really come across like that? I tried to explain myself. "I am upset because I've dreamed of Skellig for seven years, and I've been imagining it in my brain and looking forward to this trip for fucking months."

"I've always wanted to go to Greece, and we're not going there."

"But you didn't have it dangling in front of you. I thought that I was finally going to get to go to one of the impossible places that I never expected I would actually be able to see. And then the day I've been waiting for gets here and I find out that it was never on the itinerary in the first place, but here's a fucking video. We are twenty miles away. I am twenty miles away and I can't get there." This was killing me.

"Yeah, well, this isn't about you."

"You made it about me. I was trying to count cows."

"You were feeling sorry for yourself, because you think you're entitled and oppressed."

Arguing was pointless, and I was too shocked to respond. What the fuck? I felt snotty and unappreciative, and have I always been such a fucking gremlin without realizing it? I had no idea that people had such a negative impression of me. Does everyone really feel that way about me? Or is it just my sister?

I decided my behavior must change. I reminded myself that I was being horrible and ridiculous and batshit crazy, and no one likes self-loathing. But when the time comes to prove to myself that I've grown, I will probably revert back to being a whiny, frustrated bitch.

Didn't talk for a long while. Counted cows again.

The tour ended the next day and we spent a couple days in Dublin on our own, and that was excellent. The Dad and I went to about seven million bookstores and had a couple beers while my mom and sisters went to the Guinness Brewery (I'd already been there, and Dad said, "You've seen one brewery, you've seen them all."). We all fell in love with the long room library at Trinity College and I added "bind a book by hand" to my list of things to do before I die. I convinced the family to see the dead zoo at the Natural History Museum. Mom wouldn't go inside, the sisters did a quick walk through, called me a "creeper" and got the hell out of there, and Dad thought it was awesome. It's still one of my favorite museums of all time, because it's rugged and packed with insanity.

So...that's how Ireland was.

...

Maybe I incepted Inception into Christopher Nolan whilst HE slept.

You guys, I'm sure, have seen trailers for Inception.

Well, fuck. There goes my book. I have to change it. Again. Dreaming is going to be the new It Overused Plot Device. Like time-travelling zombie vampires with only short-term memories with a multiple-personality twist at the end (oh, Jesus, I hope not. I hope people take this movie and let it stand alone and DON'T FUCKING WITH THE DREAMING.) because I mean, seriously? You know how long it takes to try to write a book, and create and imagine new devices from goddamn scratch?

(I am not going to talk about it, by the way. The book. Any questions you ask will be graciously ignored. I didn't tell anyone I was even working on one because I don't want to be fucking pestered all the time. "How's your book? What's it about? Am I in it? How much have you written? Can I read some of it? When do you think you'll finish it? How does it start?" All that shit does is stress me out.)

You know how long it takes? A long time. That's how long. I am such a fucking idiot. I am way too insecure. No way am I going to be accused of copying anything, whether I did it or not. Must start over again. Luckily I can keep the same characters, but gee willikers. I have issues.

Obviously, I know, there have been stories about dreams for years. Centuries even. It's nothing new. But you know how lately pop culture takes one successful plot device and just goes fucking bonkers with it, hammering out like forty movies in two years with the exact same plot until it becomes spoofed in a Wayans brothers movie? And then you're like, "Seriously? Another movie about dreams? Fuck you, Hollywood."

I am stronger than my issues. Right? I am stronger than dreams. Keep on telling yourself that, me.

...

I leave for Ireland tomorrow. Everyone have a brilliant week. Go Hawks.

...

Things I Fear Are Less Scary When Confronted With Subpar Poetry (Slam!)

I.
In some malls there rests a store
with front adorned by smiling bears.
Do not be fooled! For at its core
amidst tufts of fluffy, cuddly gore
Build-A-Bear spawns plush nightmares.

Armies of limb and eye and knee
the heads of cubs impaled on sticks
shout, "Choose me! Hear me! Stuff me! Fluff me!
Take this shit and shove it up me."
What sadistic fuck approved of this?

Were you to ask, and ask you should
What paves the road to hell -
I'd say demonic whispers, intentions good,
fires that burn unfueled by wood,
and bits of bears that couldn't sell.


II.
The idea of dark?
just nothingness? life devoid?
Is the fucking worst.


III.
You might be familiar with my irrational fear
of Indiana, its people and places.
Well, most of you don't live so near
to see the state's hidden faces.

In regards to legitimate reason, there's none
excepting eyes of ice and faux humility,
those voices chill and monotone,
long roads that stretch into sterility.

It depresses, you know, it just fucking does,
it's all barren, industrial horseshit, or both.
You wish it better than it last was
But keep driving through there, swearing oath:

Just passing through, not stopping by
you motherfuckers won't take me alive.


IV.
Sometimes when people speak Spanish
the spaces between their words vanish
rapid verbal succession
when foreign's a weapon
and I nervously shirk and feel mawkish.


V.
People get eye surgery
because they are crazy
and they think it'll help them see better.
But they seem to forget
(this is the part I don't get)
the evilness of this procedure:
I'm talking death rays and plasma rifles and electro-artillery
used by villains in movies like Moonraker,
because you think you're correcting
while consciously neglecting
the fact that YOUR EYES ARE BEING SLICED WITH A LASER.

...

I Only Get Lost When Other People Give Me Direction, or: I Do Good at Metaphors

(I wrote this like, last summer and never published it. So...yeah.)

"Can I see the map?" I ask Muffy as we're walking to my car.

"Don't worry about it, I know how to get there."

"I don't give a shit, I'm going to get lost if you're giving me directions."

"Dude. You're not listening to me. I know how to get there."

"And you're not listening to me: I WILL GET LOST. Seriously. Can I please see the map?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

"I do trust you. I just trust my frustration more. Please give me the goddamn map."

"Dude, it's not hard to get there. I've been there before. I like, go there all the fucking time."

"I don't give a shit if you go there, you could paint the route on the fucking streets with fucking ice cream and I will still get lost if I don't know where we're going."

"But I know where we're going."

"Jesus Christ, give me the map."

"Okay, all we do is take 88 to fucking 39-"

"Please. Give. Me. The map."

"I'm fucking telling you how to get there!"

"YOU FUCKING TELLING ME IS WHAT GETS ME LOST. I can't follow directions."

"How can we get fucking lost--"

"All I need is to look at the map. "

"--if I'm in the car sitting right fucking next to you."

"You know, I will find a way out of spite," I mutter as I hand her my car keys.

Muffy reaches into her pocket and hands me a folded scrap of paper in return. "Here. I wrote them down."

Wave it away. "I cannot follow written or verbal directions, it fucks with my bearings."

Muffy scoffs at me and unlocks her door. "I should just fucking drive."

"Shut up, I'm driving," I pull my door handle, thunking it a couple of times. "I don't want to listen to your shitty punk music."

"Harsh, dude. Harsh." She tosses my keys back to me over the top of my car before climbing into the passenger seat.

"Seriously," I unlock my door and trip a little as I sit down, "Shit. I just look at the map, see where we are and where we need to fucking go and I will fucking get us there, I don't need street names or nothing. Fucking beginning and end. Boom. Done." Slam the door.

"Dude, I will be telling you directions like step by step."

"Seriously, if you're just sitting there telling me what to do I'm gonna get pissed off and like subconsciously fuck it all up, and then I'm going to blame you in the back of my head."

"Maybe I don't want to give you the map."

"Then we're just going to be miserable all fucking weekend, because we'll be all hating each other."

"Ha ha! Dude, you are so psychologically fucked."

"Please give me the fucking map before I fucking cut it out of your fucking hands."

"Okay. Jesus," she pulls a second piece of folded paper out of her pocket and throws it on the dashboard. "Fucking baby much?"

I start the car, snatching the map. "I fucking hate you so hard."

...

Muffy and I say "fuck" a lot.

...

Square Pegs

New Guy Dean: Unlike you, I'm still a square peg trying to force myself into a round hole...

Me: It's okay. I'm a square peg wondering why holes are necessary.

This happened earlier today. Here. It's odd how comfortable I am with that concept, and then I get all uncomfortable because I should feel discomfort, and do not, and then I get pissed because I just consciously scared myself into thinking I had to fit somewhere.

The mind is a tricky little bitch. Or a shady feeble dick.

After all, we're about equality here. Nothing like snapping stereotypes in half by painting duplicitous women and impotent men. Because no one's ever done that before*.

I've decided that instead of searching for an existing idea or belief to fit inside, it's far easier just to start a new one. Religion, feminism. I take issue with some schools of feminism. We don't need women to be more like men, we need women to be confident in being themselves, whether they are highly feminine, exceedingly masculine, or a various mix of the two.

I'm obsessed with watching Tough Love on VH1, (cable? I shake my fist at you) and I sit there in fury at the fuck-off creators of this show, convincing women that they need to get married to be happy, and that they'll never value themselves until they're loved by a man**. Shouldn't the show focus more on building the assurance that these women are capable and strong with or without a relationship? I know, that's not what the show's about. The show is about desperate women going crazy without a stable guy to keep them grounded.

The problem is, I start believing it. Oh, well yeah, that makes sense. I should try to hide that about myself until someone is ready to handle it, this guy knows what he's talking about. And then I get all bitchcrazy, because it's all, yeah, why don't I have a boyfriend?

And I have to remind myself that I am stronger than fucking VH1.

So yeah. I am subject to that lapse of nonsense, and I feel inferior for giving in, even if it's just for five minutes. Because I can't give in. It would be easier, maybe, if I started with the make-up and the stylish clothes, if I worked out once in awhile, if I tried to look like everyone else and stopped talking about Teen Wolf and nudey touch***.

But I don't have to, and I don't want to, and I'm confused, because I feel like I should want to, so there's something wrong with me when I don't. And I feel that pressure, and push back even harder, because fuck you, I don't need that, stop trying to convince me otherwise. But look at how happy she is. What if I do need it, and I don't realize it? No. I'm fine just the way I am, where is this coming from? I haven't always been happy, remember? But that was self-pity because nothing was happening. So you happened, remember? You fixed it. Your head is healthier now. No it's not, because that fear is back, the fear of dormancy, what if I tricked myself into the wrong answer?**** Fucking summer. Screw it. Start acting.

Who wants to go for a bike ride?

Pah. Nevermind. I do not need someone to go with me. It is all right to ride my bike alone.

...

* Please catch the sarcasm. I don't want another issue on my hands like when I said I was going to buy a rug from Pottery Barn so I could be original and everyone had to point out that Pottery Barn was the exact opposite of original. Duh. I know. That's why I said it, jerks.

** What about lesbians?

*** I know exactly what you're going to say: "whatever, I love Teen Wolf and nudey touch, it's what makes you awesome and/or is totally normal." And that's why I like having you guys around. Perhaps you'll say that I can talk about Teen Wolf and nudey touch AND wear the make-up and styley clothes. But that's not me, you see.

**** There is no deep dark secret here. I just used to be extremely self-loathing and depressed, and wondered why nothing ever happened to me, good or bad. It was just this string of sameness and boredom, and I thought that I needed just someone to help me out of it, until it occurred to me that "someone" was unnecessary, because I was "someone."

...