You are the only magic I’ve ever known
You don’t complete me-
Only help me grow
I love you all the time, every single day
I love you even more than words will let me say
After all this time, I still can’t believe
I’ve tricked you into loving me.
And now we’re here we can’t turn back
You’re in it now Kid,
You’re on my track
I’m so glad that we decided to try
Because now we’re the team of you and I
So help me now to stand up tall
Because you’re the one who made me fall
Please, please
Just look at my face
Hold me close in your embrace
‘Cause the moments spent just you and me
Are the moments where I feel most free
Please, please
Hold out your hand
Our dreams will come true- just like we planned
Just let go and take this step
It’ll be a step you won’t regret
It’s been a lot harder than I thought it would
I wondered if-
If we even could
Make it though our latest fight
Neither conceding the other could be right
Sometimes we may stray from the plans
But I never fold a winning hand
I’ve always known that you’re my home
And if I called
I know you’d come
And when I think I can’t get through
I close my eyes and try and trust
Because we were here- just me and you
And God took that and made an us.
Take one deep breath, because maybe, if we try
We can have a love even time will pass by
Please, please
Just look at my face
We have a love time can’t erase
All the moments spent just you and me
Are the moments that create a we
Please, please
Hold out your hand
We’ll create a strength and we will stand
A whole made from two singular parts
Two beings colliding, creating one heart
Monday, July 28, 2008
Thinking about not thinking about you
I can go through the days without your smile
I can live forever never hearing your name
Never reliving the laughs and the tears and the pain
I can go on with my life and be more than just fine
Spend my time thinking about not thinking about
When you were mine
When I had someone to hold
And someone to be
And someone who thought perfection was me
I think back on those times
And I laugh and I cry
And I try to remember
When I didn’t think about
Having to think about
How to get by
Every day brings something new
Something with nothing to do with you
Our love has passed-I know that now
And I’m doing the best that I know how
Taking one more breath
Singing one more song
Trying to think about not thinking about just getting along
Trying to think about not thinking about you
I know that you can’t understand how
We can be together but aren’t right now
Being alone is scary and new
And not something that I normally do
I know that this is best for me
But take solace in knowing
That there are times where I can only think about
The days when I had someone to hold
And someone to be
And someone who thought perfection was me
I think back on those times
And I laugh and I cry
And I remember
When I didn’t think about
Having to think about
How to get by
I can live forever never hearing your name
Never reliving the laughs and the tears and the pain
I can go on with my life and be more than just fine
Spend my time thinking about not thinking about
When you were mine
When I had someone to hold
And someone to be
And someone who thought perfection was me
I think back on those times
And I laugh and I cry
And I try to remember
When I didn’t think about
Having to think about
How to get by
Every day brings something new
Something with nothing to do with you
Our love has passed-I know that now
And I’m doing the best that I know how
Taking one more breath
Singing one more song
Trying to think about not thinking about just getting along
Trying to think about not thinking about you
I know that you can’t understand how
We can be together but aren’t right now
Being alone is scary and new
And not something that I normally do
I know that this is best for me
But take solace in knowing
That there are times where I can only think about
The days when I had someone to hold
And someone to be
And someone who thought perfection was me
I think back on those times
And I laugh and I cry
And I remember
When I didn’t think about
Having to think about
How to get by
The annoyance factor
Alright. So we haven’t had a good list of the things that irritate Christine lately, and I think now is as good a time as any to get one of them going. This, however, is going to be the all-inclusive list. Numbered and everything. Only to be added to, not to be detracted from. So, some of these may be repeats of past annoyances, but they need to be put into the official list for posterity. This is going to be a long one, folks, and you know that if I say it’s going to be long, then it’s going to be a beast. Alright, warning put out there, purpose put out there, here we go- the official list.
1. People that say “Oh! I love that song!” and then proceed to mumble out the verses and scream the chorus. I don’t care that you don’t know the song. Truth be told, I probably don’t care if you like it or not. I do, however, care that you proclaim to love something that you have no idea about. I don’t think you’re cool. And the fact that you try and make up for your ignorance by belting out the super catchy chorus that any two-year old could pick up on just annoys me further.
2. People that claim to hate something they’ve never done. You don’t hate it. You don’t even know what it is. Either try it and hate it, or don’t try it and don’t have an opinion.
3. People that hit on people that are ridiculously out of their league, and then are shocked when it doesn’t play out the way they want it to. It was never going to work out. I respect aiming for the fence; I do, but please spare me.
4. When people say they hate liars, cheaters and fakes. Of course you do. Everyone does. It’s like saying you hate when people pour alcohol into your wound. I do not think you’re taking a stand for something or sticking up for yourself. I think you’re stating an obvious fact. And, shockingly, stating an obvious fact doesn’t impress anyone.
5. A LOT. It’s two words. Enough said.
6. “Wild and Out”, the Nick Cannon show on MTV. I hate it. Vehemently. No one on the show is funny, and no one in the world can possibly think it’s funny except the audience that has either been drugged, or clinically determined insane.
7. Don’t even get me started on “Yo Momma”. It’s always on. In three hour spurts. Flanked by “Wild and Out”.
8. Being loud does not make you right or your opinion any more valid.
9. People that don’t speak English and then get offended that I don’t know their native tongue. I don’t care if you speak the language I speak, but I refuse to believe that because the world won’t speak my language that it lies on my shoulders to learn the languages of the world. Personally, I think we should revert back to grunts and points. But that’s just me.
10. The fact that when you’re little the only crayons they give to you are the super big ones. No wonder my flower spanned the entire length of the paper: my crayon was an inch in diameter and three inches tall. What kind of great art was I expected to produce?
11. While we’re on annoyances of the young: Parents, please take control of your children. If they cannot be controlled, don’t take them into public so they can run into my legs. And if your child, beyond any comprehensible reason actually runs into my legs, full force, leaving unknown bruises, don’t just laugh and try and convince me it’s cute. It isn’t cute. It’s obnoxious.
12. Bad kissers. I don’t need to mention technique or form, but no one likes to have their face raped. The end.
13. Guys getting freaked out by a girl’s period. Alright men, here’s the deal: it’s going to happen. Once a month. For a very long time. In this time, it would behoove you to just give us a little space. It’s nothing to be scared of, but it would be a good idea for you to think twice before you go being retarded. And please, give us a little credit… You try bleeding for a week straight and not dying, we’re entitled to a little rush of estrogen.
14. There. As in, the dog is over there. Their. As in, their dog is a pest. They’re. As in, they’re leaving because they have a pest for a dog. Please, please, please be mindful of that.
15. People that tell stories that start nowhere, go nowhere, and end nowhere. And if they can manage to speak in a completely monotonous tone the entire time and laugh hysterically for reasons that defy logic randomly throughout their tirade, all the better.
16. Puns. Not funny. Ever. For any reason.
17. The “How do I know you?” game. I don’t know how you know me. You probably don’t. But for some reason, you ask, and we have to play this weird guessing game in which I mention every school, meeting, job, and social gathering I’ve ever attended, and every person I’ve come in contact with over the past 5 years. This game has a 95% failure rate, and the other 5 is shaky at best.
18. People with no medical condition who breathe loudly. Why do you do this? Is it some odd ploy to attract attention? Because it works. And I hate it. And it makes me wonder what could possibly be happening inside your respiratory tract that would cause that perpetual noise. And if that’s not bad enough, 9 times out of 10, I’ll come up with a not-so-clever nickname that will define you for the entirety of our relationship.
19. The phrase “You betcha”.
20. Putting a carton of milk, juice, soda, etc. back In the refrigerator if it doesn’t have enough liquid left in it to fill another glass. This is obnoxious all the time, but especially so when the carton isn’t transparent, so you can’t see that there isn’t anything in there, and so you get your heart set on whatever’s in that carton only to be disappointed. Ugh.
21. Take responsibility for your actions. If you’re grown-up enough to make a decision, then you’re grown-up enough to live with the consequence. Every action has a reaction. It’s a law of physics. Get used to it.
22. The yogurt chain 21 Choices. Everyone says it’s delicious, and that might possibly be the case; however, it’s a deliberate knock off of 31 Flavors, and so I won’t eat there. Be original. If you have great yogurt and a high-traffic geographic location, then you can call yourselves just about anything and people will eat there, you don’t have to be annoying.
23. On the subject of off-brands, I don’t care if something is a knock-off, I really don’t. That being said, if you’re going to be a knock-off, do not name yourself something that makes you sound like the child no one loves. Dr. Pepper: love it. Dr. Skipper or Dr. Thunder: Want to throw it at someone. Mountain Dew: May not be my favorite, but I will choose it every time when put against Mountain Breeze. I have more respect for the Safeway brand sodas that are just called “Cola” or “Orange”. I don’t ask that you be original, I just ask that you not be preposterous.
24. People who question how I spend my money. Do I owe you any money? No. Do you fund my excursions? No. Then you have no right to tell me how you think I should be spending the money I make, end of story.
25. When people go out and they’re in a bad mood. It’s not my fault that you decided to get all riled up before you left your house, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you not infect me with your foul disposition.
26. If you think it’s necessary to go out to eat, and you have fairly decent service, tip your server. If you can’t afford to tip, you have 2 options, and they are as follows: Don’t go out, or order something less expensive. The only thing more irritating than that is if you clearly have enough money to tip, and you just decide not to. If your bill is $25 and you pay me with a hundred dollar bill, and I know that you had good service and you leave me $2, you are irritating.
27. People who try and give me their number. I may be old fashioned, but I think it’s the boy’s job to call the girl. If you want to get to know me, it’s your job to balls up and ask for my number.
28. “My friend thinks you’re cute”. Your friend is either ridiculous or 8 years old. Either way, not interested.
29. If something smells funny, do not ask me to try it. Here’s a tip: if your milk smells like it’s gone sour, it probably has. You don’t need first hand knowledge of this fact, and if you do, you can drink it. I don’t want to drink your sour milk.
30. Two words: Nipple shoes. You know the ones. They aren’t quite flats because they have these obscene tiny heels that serve absolutely no purpose except for to disturb me. And when I say, “disturb”, I mean, “activate gag reflex”.
31. When you’re stopped at a red light, and you need to turn right, and there’s a singular car in front of you, and they’re going straight so you can’t move. Ugh.
32. Don’t tell me you don’t know what you want. Everyone knows they want. Whether or not what they want is possible is another story, but everyone at their core knows what they want. Come up with another excuse.
34. The pot roast dinner at BJs. It’s a piece of fat marbled with meat, and it’s repulsive.
35. Food that looks like it did when it was still alive. I take great issue with eating something I’m tempted to name.
36. Women who blame men for the pressure they have to be beautiful. Any pressure that is felt for being aesthetically pleasing comes from you. It does not come from men, or magazine covers, or any number of anorexic models you want to compare yourself to. I wear make-up because I want to look better. It isn’t because I think that I’ll be ousted from society and sent to live with the lepers if I don’t. And if you’re with someone who makes you feel like they wouldn’t like you if your appearance changed, then you hang out with douche bags. End of story.
37. Celebrities have no more political say than I do. Just because their job consists of being in the public eye does not mean that they know how to run the country. It does not mean that what they say means more than anyone else, and it does not make their words more valid than anyone else’s who wakes up in the morning and reads the newspaper. If I didn’t ask for your opinion, don’t give it to me. And, sorry Kanye, hate him as you may, I’m fairly confident that George Bush did not send Hurricane Katrina because he hates black people. But that’s just me. I’ve been wrong before.
38. When I call you, never answer the phone call with “Wow. You actually called me back” or “Never thought I’d see the day this would happen” or anything along those lines. Because when you answer my phone calls with interrogation, it makes me want to never call you again. In fact, it makes me want to say, “Oh man. Wrong number. I obviously had no intention of calling you. I really should take care of those duplicates in my contact list”
39. I hate, loathe, and despise awkward silence. This is why I tend to fill the awkward silence with awkward talking. This usually makes things worse, but at the same time makes me feel much more comfortable.
40. People who call me in the morning without specific instructions to do so. Do you hate me? Because if you’re not dead or dying, then I hate you. I will have an entire conversation with you that I will never remember having, I will agree to just about anything to get you off the phone, and when I’m actually coherent enough to remember that you may have called, I will hate you all over again.
41. Don’t eat my food. Just don’t do it. I’ve killed for less. Using nothing more than a straw and my fist.
42. The fact colored pencils don’t erase. The entire purpose of a pencil is its erasing capability. Apparently colored pencils didn’t get the memo. Call yourselves something else, colored pencils, because if you can’t erase, then you’re no good to anyone.
43. On the subject of coloring, why in God’s name does the 96 pack of crayons have repeats in there? It makes absolutely no sense, and it’s a bold faced lie for those children who want to have a 96 color experience. You can’t, poor child, because you see, us moguls here at Crayola have decided to trick you by putting burnt sepia in there twice. And cobalt. They should call it 79 colors plus some repeats to fill the box. At least then they’d be honest.
44. People that call you, and then call you 2 seconds later from a restricted number hoping they've tricked you. First off, if you think I'm that retarded, don't be my friend. Leave me in a ditch to die because I've outlived my purpose. Secondly, what is your best-case scenario for that? I answer? Then I think you are a douche bag who isn't worth talking to, AND I'm retarded.
45. When people call you and say nothing. And then proceed to get you when you have nothing to say. It is not my job to fill your brain. Go do something. Read a book. Climb a tree. Roll around in dirt. I don’t care.
46. If someone is nice enough to hold the door open for you, or do some other random act of kindness, it is our job as human beings to thank them for it. It doesn’t take much, and ungrateful people infuriate me like no other.
47. I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention (or just scroll back up and re-read it, I guess that’s always an option, too), if you read a chain letter, and a lightning bolt strikes the power lines outside your house making it impossible to repost in 5 minutes, alien babies will not storm your house and kill you in your sleep. Your best friend will not slap you in the face and move to Alaska. It is not the reason that you will never have sex again. You will never have sex again because you are so preoccupied with sending out ridiculous bulletins telling people what color jelly bean you are and why.
48. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen a movie. You are never, under any circumstances allowed to talk simultaneously along with the dialogue. Or even worse, saying every line 3 seconds before the actor does. I get it. You’ve seen the movie. And I’m super impressed. And while this may not be the last time you watch this particular film, I can guarantee you it will be the last time you watch any sort of movie with me.
49. When I go up to a table, ask what they want to drink, and they look at me like I just asked them what they think about the conflict in Iraq. You’re out to dinner. Along with dinner, most people like to drink something. This is not unusual. Get used to it, stat.
50. Never, under any circumstances, is it okay to replace the word “easy” with “e-z”.
1. People that say “Oh! I love that song!” and then proceed to mumble out the verses and scream the chorus. I don’t care that you don’t know the song. Truth be told, I probably don’t care if you like it or not. I do, however, care that you proclaim to love something that you have no idea about. I don’t think you’re cool. And the fact that you try and make up for your ignorance by belting out the super catchy chorus that any two-year old could pick up on just annoys me further.
2. People that claim to hate something they’ve never done. You don’t hate it. You don’t even know what it is. Either try it and hate it, or don’t try it and don’t have an opinion.
3. People that hit on people that are ridiculously out of their league, and then are shocked when it doesn’t play out the way they want it to. It was never going to work out. I respect aiming for the fence; I do, but please spare me.
4. When people say they hate liars, cheaters and fakes. Of course you do. Everyone does. It’s like saying you hate when people pour alcohol into your wound. I do not think you’re taking a stand for something or sticking up for yourself. I think you’re stating an obvious fact. And, shockingly, stating an obvious fact doesn’t impress anyone.
5. A LOT. It’s two words. Enough said.
6. “Wild and Out”, the Nick Cannon show on MTV. I hate it. Vehemently. No one on the show is funny, and no one in the world can possibly think it’s funny except the audience that has either been drugged, or clinically determined insane.
7. Don’t even get me started on “Yo Momma”. It’s always on. In three hour spurts. Flanked by “Wild and Out”.
8. Being loud does not make you right or your opinion any more valid.
9. People that don’t speak English and then get offended that I don’t know their native tongue. I don’t care if you speak the language I speak, but I refuse to believe that because the world won’t speak my language that it lies on my shoulders to learn the languages of the world. Personally, I think we should revert back to grunts and points. But that’s just me.
10. The fact that when you’re little the only crayons they give to you are the super big ones. No wonder my flower spanned the entire length of the paper: my crayon was an inch in diameter and three inches tall. What kind of great art was I expected to produce?
11. While we’re on annoyances of the young: Parents, please take control of your children. If they cannot be controlled, don’t take them into public so they can run into my legs. And if your child, beyond any comprehensible reason actually runs into my legs, full force, leaving unknown bruises, don’t just laugh and try and convince me it’s cute. It isn’t cute. It’s obnoxious.
12. Bad kissers. I don’t need to mention technique or form, but no one likes to have their face raped. The end.
13. Guys getting freaked out by a girl’s period. Alright men, here’s the deal: it’s going to happen. Once a month. For a very long time. In this time, it would behoove you to just give us a little space. It’s nothing to be scared of, but it would be a good idea for you to think twice before you go being retarded. And please, give us a little credit… You try bleeding for a week straight and not dying, we’re entitled to a little rush of estrogen.
14. There. As in, the dog is over there. Their. As in, their dog is a pest. They’re. As in, they’re leaving because they have a pest for a dog. Please, please, please be mindful of that.
15. People that tell stories that start nowhere, go nowhere, and end nowhere. And if they can manage to speak in a completely monotonous tone the entire time and laugh hysterically for reasons that defy logic randomly throughout their tirade, all the better.
16. Puns. Not funny. Ever. For any reason.
17. The “How do I know you?” game. I don’t know how you know me. You probably don’t. But for some reason, you ask, and we have to play this weird guessing game in which I mention every school, meeting, job, and social gathering I’ve ever attended, and every person I’ve come in contact with over the past 5 years. This game has a 95% failure rate, and the other 5 is shaky at best.
18. People with no medical condition who breathe loudly. Why do you do this? Is it some odd ploy to attract attention? Because it works. And I hate it. And it makes me wonder what could possibly be happening inside your respiratory tract that would cause that perpetual noise. And if that’s not bad enough, 9 times out of 10, I’ll come up with a not-so-clever nickname that will define you for the entirety of our relationship.
19. The phrase “You betcha”.
20. Putting a carton of milk, juice, soda, etc. back In the refrigerator if it doesn’t have enough liquid left in it to fill another glass. This is obnoxious all the time, but especially so when the carton isn’t transparent, so you can’t see that there isn’t anything in there, and so you get your heart set on whatever’s in that carton only to be disappointed. Ugh.
21. Take responsibility for your actions. If you’re grown-up enough to make a decision, then you’re grown-up enough to live with the consequence. Every action has a reaction. It’s a law of physics. Get used to it.
22. The yogurt chain 21 Choices. Everyone says it’s delicious, and that might possibly be the case; however, it’s a deliberate knock off of 31 Flavors, and so I won’t eat there. Be original. If you have great yogurt and a high-traffic geographic location, then you can call yourselves just about anything and people will eat there, you don’t have to be annoying.
23. On the subject of off-brands, I don’t care if something is a knock-off, I really don’t. That being said, if you’re going to be a knock-off, do not name yourself something that makes you sound like the child no one loves. Dr. Pepper: love it. Dr. Skipper or Dr. Thunder: Want to throw it at someone. Mountain Dew: May not be my favorite, but I will choose it every time when put against Mountain Breeze. I have more respect for the Safeway brand sodas that are just called “Cola” or “Orange”. I don’t ask that you be original, I just ask that you not be preposterous.
24. People who question how I spend my money. Do I owe you any money? No. Do you fund my excursions? No. Then you have no right to tell me how you think I should be spending the money I make, end of story.
25. When people go out and they’re in a bad mood. It’s not my fault that you decided to get all riled up before you left your house, and I’d appreciate it greatly if you not infect me with your foul disposition.
26. If you think it’s necessary to go out to eat, and you have fairly decent service, tip your server. If you can’t afford to tip, you have 2 options, and they are as follows: Don’t go out, or order something less expensive. The only thing more irritating than that is if you clearly have enough money to tip, and you just decide not to. If your bill is $25 and you pay me with a hundred dollar bill, and I know that you had good service and you leave me $2, you are irritating.
27. People who try and give me their number. I may be old fashioned, but I think it’s the boy’s job to call the girl. If you want to get to know me, it’s your job to balls up and ask for my number.
28. “My friend thinks you’re cute”. Your friend is either ridiculous or 8 years old. Either way, not interested.
29. If something smells funny, do not ask me to try it. Here’s a tip: if your milk smells like it’s gone sour, it probably has. You don’t need first hand knowledge of this fact, and if you do, you can drink it. I don’t want to drink your sour milk.
30. Two words: Nipple shoes. You know the ones. They aren’t quite flats because they have these obscene tiny heels that serve absolutely no purpose except for to disturb me. And when I say, “disturb”, I mean, “activate gag reflex”.
31. When you’re stopped at a red light, and you need to turn right, and there’s a singular car in front of you, and they’re going straight so you can’t move. Ugh.
32. Don’t tell me you don’t know what you want. Everyone knows they want. Whether or not what they want is possible is another story, but everyone at their core knows what they want. Come up with another excuse.
34. The pot roast dinner at BJs. It’s a piece of fat marbled with meat, and it’s repulsive.
35. Food that looks like it did when it was still alive. I take great issue with eating something I’m tempted to name.
36. Women who blame men for the pressure they have to be beautiful. Any pressure that is felt for being aesthetically pleasing comes from you. It does not come from men, or magazine covers, or any number of anorexic models you want to compare yourself to. I wear make-up because I want to look better. It isn’t because I think that I’ll be ousted from society and sent to live with the lepers if I don’t. And if you’re with someone who makes you feel like they wouldn’t like you if your appearance changed, then you hang out with douche bags. End of story.
37. Celebrities have no more political say than I do. Just because their job consists of being in the public eye does not mean that they know how to run the country. It does not mean that what they say means more than anyone else, and it does not make their words more valid than anyone else’s who wakes up in the morning and reads the newspaper. If I didn’t ask for your opinion, don’t give it to me. And, sorry Kanye, hate him as you may, I’m fairly confident that George Bush did not send Hurricane Katrina because he hates black people. But that’s just me. I’ve been wrong before.
38. When I call you, never answer the phone call with “Wow. You actually called me back” or “Never thought I’d see the day this would happen” or anything along those lines. Because when you answer my phone calls with interrogation, it makes me want to never call you again. In fact, it makes me want to say, “Oh man. Wrong number. I obviously had no intention of calling you. I really should take care of those duplicates in my contact list”
39. I hate, loathe, and despise awkward silence. This is why I tend to fill the awkward silence with awkward talking. This usually makes things worse, but at the same time makes me feel much more comfortable.
40. People who call me in the morning without specific instructions to do so. Do you hate me? Because if you’re not dead or dying, then I hate you. I will have an entire conversation with you that I will never remember having, I will agree to just about anything to get you off the phone, and when I’m actually coherent enough to remember that you may have called, I will hate you all over again.
41. Don’t eat my food. Just don’t do it. I’ve killed for less. Using nothing more than a straw and my fist.
42. The fact colored pencils don’t erase. The entire purpose of a pencil is its erasing capability. Apparently colored pencils didn’t get the memo. Call yourselves something else, colored pencils, because if you can’t erase, then you’re no good to anyone.
43. On the subject of coloring, why in God’s name does the 96 pack of crayons have repeats in there? It makes absolutely no sense, and it’s a bold faced lie for those children who want to have a 96 color experience. You can’t, poor child, because you see, us moguls here at Crayola have decided to trick you by putting burnt sepia in there twice. And cobalt. They should call it 79 colors plus some repeats to fill the box. At least then they’d be honest.
44. People that call you, and then call you 2 seconds later from a restricted number hoping they've tricked you. First off, if you think I'm that retarded, don't be my friend. Leave me in a ditch to die because I've outlived my purpose. Secondly, what is your best-case scenario for that? I answer? Then I think you are a douche bag who isn't worth talking to, AND I'm retarded.
45. When people call you and say nothing. And then proceed to get you when you have nothing to say. It is not my job to fill your brain. Go do something. Read a book. Climb a tree. Roll around in dirt. I don’t care.
46. If someone is nice enough to hold the door open for you, or do some other random act of kindness, it is our job as human beings to thank them for it. It doesn’t take much, and ungrateful people infuriate me like no other.
47. I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention (or just scroll back up and re-read it, I guess that’s always an option, too), if you read a chain letter, and a lightning bolt strikes the power lines outside your house making it impossible to repost in 5 minutes, alien babies will not storm your house and kill you in your sleep. Your best friend will not slap you in the face and move to Alaska. It is not the reason that you will never have sex again. You will never have sex again because you are so preoccupied with sending out ridiculous bulletins telling people what color jelly bean you are and why.
48. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen a movie. You are never, under any circumstances allowed to talk simultaneously along with the dialogue. Or even worse, saying every line 3 seconds before the actor does. I get it. You’ve seen the movie. And I’m super impressed. And while this may not be the last time you watch this particular film, I can guarantee you it will be the last time you watch any sort of movie with me.
49. When I go up to a table, ask what they want to drink, and they look at me like I just asked them what they think about the conflict in Iraq. You’re out to dinner. Along with dinner, most people like to drink something. This is not unusual. Get used to it, stat.
50. Never, under any circumstances, is it okay to replace the word “easy” with “e-z”.
Love vs Hollywood
I think that Hollywood has created every single idea anyone has about love; I don’t mean warped, advanced, or shaped it, I literally think that Hollywood has created the only love people know. People blame the media for desensitizing one’s perception of drugs, violence, language, etc., but I blame the media for turning love into an unattainable objective. Now, this is only one person’s opinion, and it is far from a reliable or expert consensus, but I think the media has a direct effect on the impossible-to-ignore relationship failure rate. Just turn on the television, and you can’t help but be bombarded with dating advice, stories, and just everyday happenstances between people. Leaving the living room won’t save you, either. Just step into your car and turn on the radio, or plug in your ipod, or the throw in the latest John Mayer cd, and you are instantly placed in the world of someone else’s love story. We listen to other people’s words and watch other people’s stories, hoping that they will touch us. That somehow, they will humanize us. That if someone else out there is looking for the same thing we are, or has, God willing found it, then our desires aren’t unrealistic. What I’m beginning to wonder, however, is if we’re all retelling a fantasy that doesn’t exist. Maybe the love we want only exists in other people’s words because their words aren’t real. Maybe love as the ideal has been so engrained into us for so long, that with no real proof or reason, we have set intangible targets as the standard. Not even as something to strive for, but moreover the bar for which everything else is compared.
I just got home from watching The Holiday. Personally, I am, have been, and most likely always will be a sucker for the romantic comedy- the “Chick flick” if you will. So, unsurprisingly enough, I loved every second of the film. I don’t know why, but the whole Person A meets uncommonly attractive Person B, falls in love, has some sort of minimal conflict, and resolves it all neatly within ninety minutes platform really appeals to me. In fact, I get mad when studios vary from the template. I like my romances wonderfully predictable. I want Molly Ringwald to end up with Jake Ryan (Sixteen Candles). I ache every time Rose jumps back on to the good ship, runs to Jack and says the immortal words, “You jump, I jump, remember?” (Titanic). Chills run up my arm when Richard Gere climbs the fire escape to rescue Julia Roberts from her undeserved prostitute existence (Pretty Woman), and it absolutely infuriates me when the guy and the girl don’t get together at the end of the movie. Like I said, I’m a sucker; along with most of the other women I know. And because of this predictable idiocy, apparently we all must pay.
My all-time favorite movie is When Harry Met Sally. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that falling in love with my best friend embodies every ideal I have ever created about love. The epic climax of the movie comes when Billy Crystal (Harry) in a brilliant revelation on New Years Eve (come on, it had to be New Years Eve, did you expect any less?) realizes that he is, in fact, unbearably in love with Sally (Meg Ryan, his estranged best friend). In fact, not only does he love her, he suddenly realizes that he’s always loved her and that he can’t live one more second without her. This epiphany results in Harry running through the empty streets to a party where Sally is (predictably) having an awful time, and telling her exactly how he feels about her just before the clock strikes midnight: “I love you… and it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Years… it’s because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible”. Seriously, just writing it makes the estrogen pump a little harder, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t even want to stop it. I want to feel crazy. I want to believe that someone is running through the streets right this very moment to tell me that he wants the rest of his life to begin as soon as possible. Problem is, is that I know there isn’t, and even with that knowledge, I’m still disappointed. I’m disappointed in a situation I didn’t even know I was disappointed about. Harry met Sally. They were destined to be in love. They indirectly created in me a yearning for a circumstance that may not even exist in real life. These two fictional characters probably had a lot more to do with the last two years of my life than I care to admit.
I stand strong in the belief that every person wants epic love. Every person lives their life for that one defining moment when they realize “this is it”. This is the it I’ve dreamed of since I was born. This is the it that makes all the other its in the world seem insignificant. Problem is, is that I’m beginning to worry that the it I envision hasn’t come from my own standards, experiences, or beliefs, but rather from what I’ve absorbed over time. I don’t have a realistic expectation of love because the love that I want exists within a box. It exists within a set script of things that have to happen. There is always going to a resolution to the problem, and if there isn’t I’m dissatisfied.
My life changed the fateful day one of my girlfriends called me and told me she was taking me to see a movie that I quote/end quote “needed to see”. I had no real desire to go to the movies, but I didn’t have any other plans that seemed appealing, so I went with her to see The Notebook. Now, if I thought I was discontent with the day-to-day monotony of love, it didn’t even hold a candle to the way I felt after exposing myself to that movie. I really believe that Nicholas Sparks sold his soul to the devil, and in return Ole Lucifer handed him the manuscript to The Notebook and told him that upon release, he could have anything he wanted from any woman he wanted for the rest of his life. That story instilled such an unreasonable expectation of love, that even though I knew it was completely out of the realms of reality, every bone in my body ached for Noah Allie love. The Notebook single-handedly obliterated any thought I may have had that the love I wanted was irrational. It didn’t so much alter what I wanted from love, but rather solidified what I wanted was completely achievable. Hell, Noah wrote Allie every day for a year with no response, is a phone call to tell me about your day too much to ask? I think not. Noah built Allie a house with blue shutters because he knew at his core that one day she would come back to him, and I can’t get you to take me out on a date every once in a while? I mean, come on now, Noah read to his wife every single day even when she didn’t remember who he was or what they meant to each other in the hopes that for one second he would catch a glimmer of the woman he had loved. Why can’t you be more like Noah? If I’m a bird, I want you to be a bird, dammit.
Not only do I worry that this apparent absorbance of movie love has severely lessened the probability of any actual relationship I may have in the future, I’m beginning to wonder if the relationships I see really exist, or if they’re just the human example of two people playing parts. Elizabeth Ashley once said that, “In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes”, and I wonder how much fact rings true in that statement. Do people do things for the other person because they want to, or is done out of some sense of propriety? Lloyd Dobler stood outside of Diane Court’s window holding a radio over his head blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” (Say Anything). How many replicas of this scene have been created over the course of time to prove someone’s love? More interestingly, how many ideas has this sparked for other wildly romantic moments? Without Hollywood, would these moments even exist? I have wished, achingly, for someone to come sweep me off of my feet. But do I even have realistic measures for which feet should be swept? Would the “romantic” things people do even exist if we didn’t have something else to compare them to? Does the importance to create an elaborate show cause things of actual importance to get thrown by the wayside? Am I so busy waiting for Patrick Swayze to come get me from my corner, that I’ll never be happy with anything less?
The Plain White Ts wrote a song called “Hey There, Delilah”, and a verse of the lyrics reads, “A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they’ve got planes and trains and cars, I’d walk to you if I had no other way. Our friends would all make fun of us, and we’ll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way. And you’re to blame” The first time I heard that song, my exact words were, “I want someone to feel that way about me”. I know that I’ve always wanted someone to feel that way about me, but when I hear it, does it give my desires validity? And if so, is that validity a good thing? I spend so much of my time writing down my feelings, and paying attention to the meaning behind what people say, and dissecting the nuances of a look or a moment, because I want everything to mean something. But maybe not everything has to mean something. Maybe epic love exists, but the epic isn’t what I think it is. I fear that as a society, we become so set in the belief that great love results from writing your name and phone number on a five dollar bill and riding an elevator just to see if you end up on the same floor (Serendipity) that we’ll never be satisfied with what’s actually possible.
I think that love exists. I think that real, last forever love exists. I’m just not sure if it exists in the confines of a script. I worry that at some point we’ll become so consumed with the pandemonium ending that the real stuff won’t be appreciated. And by trivializing the every day, one day it won’t exist. Reality won’t be an actual thing, but rather a series of calculated moments all leading up to a climax and resolution. Nothing will be done out of the desire to do something nice, but rather to put on a show. Love won’t be defined by actual feelings, but rather how one displays those feelings. Intimacy will be nothing but a four-syllable word talked about by other people. At the end of the day, I want to believe that the show means nothing, but rather it’s the thought behind the show that carries the weight, and I can’t help but wonder how long it will take before I start reversing that. When will the day come where I believe that anything less than someone running into a press room full of people professing to have been a “daft prick” (Notting Hill) be settling? When do the priorities switch?
No one wants to feel the ache of settling, but isn’t everything to some extent an act of settling? If you spend your life chasing the next best thing, you’ll end up with nothing. I believe that love is the same way. It just gets iffy when there’s this constant barrage of things you should expect. Bottom line, I think the only successes in love comes when both people expect nothing, because when you don’t expect anything, nothing will disappoint you.
I’m never really good at ending these little philosophies on life, so I’m going to stop trying. This was nothing more than another insomniac rant, and there will be many more.
I just got home from watching The Holiday. Personally, I am, have been, and most likely always will be a sucker for the romantic comedy- the “Chick flick” if you will. So, unsurprisingly enough, I loved every second of the film. I don’t know why, but the whole Person A meets uncommonly attractive Person B, falls in love, has some sort of minimal conflict, and resolves it all neatly within ninety minutes platform really appeals to me. In fact, I get mad when studios vary from the template. I like my romances wonderfully predictable. I want Molly Ringwald to end up with Jake Ryan (Sixteen Candles). I ache every time Rose jumps back on to the good ship, runs to Jack and says the immortal words, “You jump, I jump, remember?” (Titanic). Chills run up my arm when Richard Gere climbs the fire escape to rescue Julia Roberts from her undeserved prostitute existence (Pretty Woman), and it absolutely infuriates me when the guy and the girl don’t get together at the end of the movie. Like I said, I’m a sucker; along with most of the other women I know. And because of this predictable idiocy, apparently we all must pay.
My all-time favorite movie is When Harry Met Sally. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that falling in love with my best friend embodies every ideal I have ever created about love. The epic climax of the movie comes when Billy Crystal (Harry) in a brilliant revelation on New Years Eve (come on, it had to be New Years Eve, did you expect any less?) realizes that he is, in fact, unbearably in love with Sally (Meg Ryan, his estranged best friend). In fact, not only does he love her, he suddenly realizes that he’s always loved her and that he can’t live one more second without her. This epiphany results in Harry running through the empty streets to a party where Sally is (predictably) having an awful time, and telling her exactly how he feels about her just before the clock strikes midnight: “I love you… and it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Years… it’s because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible”. Seriously, just writing it makes the estrogen pump a little harder, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I don’t even want to stop it. I want to feel crazy. I want to believe that someone is running through the streets right this very moment to tell me that he wants the rest of his life to begin as soon as possible. Problem is, is that I know there isn’t, and even with that knowledge, I’m still disappointed. I’m disappointed in a situation I didn’t even know I was disappointed about. Harry met Sally. They were destined to be in love. They indirectly created in me a yearning for a circumstance that may not even exist in real life. These two fictional characters probably had a lot more to do with the last two years of my life than I care to admit.
I stand strong in the belief that every person wants epic love. Every person lives their life for that one defining moment when they realize “this is it”. This is the it I’ve dreamed of since I was born. This is the it that makes all the other its in the world seem insignificant. Problem is, is that I’m beginning to worry that the it I envision hasn’t come from my own standards, experiences, or beliefs, but rather from what I’ve absorbed over time. I don’t have a realistic expectation of love because the love that I want exists within a box. It exists within a set script of things that have to happen. There is always going to a resolution to the problem, and if there isn’t I’m dissatisfied.
My life changed the fateful day one of my girlfriends called me and told me she was taking me to see a movie that I quote/end quote “needed to see”. I had no real desire to go to the movies, but I didn’t have any other plans that seemed appealing, so I went with her to see The Notebook. Now, if I thought I was discontent with the day-to-day monotony of love, it didn’t even hold a candle to the way I felt after exposing myself to that movie. I really believe that Nicholas Sparks sold his soul to the devil, and in return Ole Lucifer handed him the manuscript to The Notebook and told him that upon release, he could have anything he wanted from any woman he wanted for the rest of his life. That story instilled such an unreasonable expectation of love, that even though I knew it was completely out of the realms of reality, every bone in my body ached for Noah Allie love. The Notebook single-handedly obliterated any thought I may have had that the love I wanted was irrational. It didn’t so much alter what I wanted from love, but rather solidified what I wanted was completely achievable. Hell, Noah wrote Allie every day for a year with no response, is a phone call to tell me about your day too much to ask? I think not. Noah built Allie a house with blue shutters because he knew at his core that one day she would come back to him, and I can’t get you to take me out on a date every once in a while? I mean, come on now, Noah read to his wife every single day even when she didn’t remember who he was or what they meant to each other in the hopes that for one second he would catch a glimmer of the woman he had loved. Why can’t you be more like Noah? If I’m a bird, I want you to be a bird, dammit.
Not only do I worry that this apparent absorbance of movie love has severely lessened the probability of any actual relationship I may have in the future, I’m beginning to wonder if the relationships I see really exist, or if they’re just the human example of two people playing parts. Elizabeth Ashley once said that, “In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes”, and I wonder how much fact rings true in that statement. Do people do things for the other person because they want to, or is done out of some sense of propriety? Lloyd Dobler stood outside of Diane Court’s window holding a radio over his head blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” (Say Anything). How many replicas of this scene have been created over the course of time to prove someone’s love? More interestingly, how many ideas has this sparked for other wildly romantic moments? Without Hollywood, would these moments even exist? I have wished, achingly, for someone to come sweep me off of my feet. But do I even have realistic measures for which feet should be swept? Would the “romantic” things people do even exist if we didn’t have something else to compare them to? Does the importance to create an elaborate show cause things of actual importance to get thrown by the wayside? Am I so busy waiting for Patrick Swayze to come get me from my corner, that I’ll never be happy with anything less?
The Plain White Ts wrote a song called “Hey There, Delilah”, and a verse of the lyrics reads, “A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they’ve got planes and trains and cars, I’d walk to you if I had no other way. Our friends would all make fun of us, and we’ll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way. And you’re to blame” The first time I heard that song, my exact words were, “I want someone to feel that way about me”. I know that I’ve always wanted someone to feel that way about me, but when I hear it, does it give my desires validity? And if so, is that validity a good thing? I spend so much of my time writing down my feelings, and paying attention to the meaning behind what people say, and dissecting the nuances of a look or a moment, because I want everything to mean something. But maybe not everything has to mean something. Maybe epic love exists, but the epic isn’t what I think it is. I fear that as a society, we become so set in the belief that great love results from writing your name and phone number on a five dollar bill and riding an elevator just to see if you end up on the same floor (Serendipity) that we’ll never be satisfied with what’s actually possible.
I think that love exists. I think that real, last forever love exists. I’m just not sure if it exists in the confines of a script. I worry that at some point we’ll become so consumed with the pandemonium ending that the real stuff won’t be appreciated. And by trivializing the every day, one day it won’t exist. Reality won’t be an actual thing, but rather a series of calculated moments all leading up to a climax and resolution. Nothing will be done out of the desire to do something nice, but rather to put on a show. Love won’t be defined by actual feelings, but rather how one displays those feelings. Intimacy will be nothing but a four-syllable word talked about by other people. At the end of the day, I want to believe that the show means nothing, but rather it’s the thought behind the show that carries the weight, and I can’t help but wonder how long it will take before I start reversing that. When will the day come where I believe that anything less than someone running into a press room full of people professing to have been a “daft prick” (Notting Hill) be settling? When do the priorities switch?
No one wants to feel the ache of settling, but isn’t everything to some extent an act of settling? If you spend your life chasing the next best thing, you’ll end up with nothing. I believe that love is the same way. It just gets iffy when there’s this constant barrage of things you should expect. Bottom line, I think the only successes in love comes when both people expect nothing, because when you don’t expect anything, nothing will disappoint you.
I’m never really good at ending these little philosophies on life, so I’m going to stop trying. This was nothing more than another insomniac rant, and there will be many more.
San Francisco, a cookie, and the Dans
Do you ever feel like you’re a crazy person? I mean, I guess that by all accounts I fit into the very loose definition that is “normal”: I don’t have toes in my freezer, I don’t need to touch my head three times and turn in a circle counter-clockwise before I leave the house, and I don’t participate in ritual animal sacrifices of any kind, but still I can’t shake the feeling that something is just a little bit askew in my brain. Maybe not directly in my brain, but more in my way of thinking: in the general thought process my brain goes through in order to reach any kind of conclusion. Most of the time I just brush off these thoughts of my abnormality with some phrase usually sounding something like “I’ll bet everyone is like this, they just don’t say anything”. The problem with this excuse is two-fold. One: I think it’s untrue. Two: most of the time I’m in charge of making excuses for my behavior, not only do I deem any sort of wrong doing as completely false, but somewhere in the process, I tend to turn it into some sort of strength of mine: I am the only person who is strong enough in character to accept what everyone else just assumes is bizarre, and not only do I identify it, but I embrace it. This is probably untrue as well.
One of these cute little idiosyncrasies came out this weekend while I was in San Francisco with my dad. The first half of the first day was spent traveling around looking and apartment complexes. Super fun. We would drive from complex to complex, and then we would get out, survey it, and then everyone would talk about how great they were. I was sure in that moment why people hate white Republicans. I know that I am, in fact, a white Republican, and one day will inevitably walk around with a bunch of staunchy people I don’t know and talk about how great I am. It seems to be the burden of the beast. Anyway, these people just went walking around with this sense of elitism (at one point, I’m fairly confident that one of them had the sudden, nearly uncontrollable urge to pat me on the head), and all I could think of was how much I wanted one of the huge cookies I saw on the tray five feet ahead of me. This in and of itself isn’t crazy. I can guarantee you that anyone in my position would have tried to find any kind of solace in this sea of middle-aged men named Dan (I affectionately referred to them throughout the trip as “The Dans” due to the phenomena that they all had the same name), and a cookie was as good a salvation as any. What I can’t shake as being crazy is how much I obsessed about these cookies. I’m sure I went partially insane. I was having actual dialogue in my head about the cookies and how much I wanted to eat one, and whether or not they were homemade (definitely not, too big. Too perfect and identical). I posed questions to myself: When would be too soon to grab one? Which Dan would be the catalyst for the cookie feast? If I still wanted one, could I have two? Was it even appropriate to eat any? No one wanted to build apartments in my city. And so on.
Then the glorious moment arrived, and I devoured the cookie of my fantasies. I devoured it with a voraciousness that would suggest that I hadn’t eaten in days. Kind of like Charlie and the Chocolate factory when Charlie goes to get the chocolate for Grandpa Joe and has enough left over for one of his own. He then finds the golden ticket and later visits the scariest place imaginable, so that’s where our stories differ, but in that moment Charlie Bucket and I were kindred spirits. Once the cookie was done, though, I immediately felt completely nauseous and claustrophobic. It was as if the dream of the cookie had been enough to keep me from a complete breakdown, and once the dream was over, I had nothing left in the world. I began to sweat and look at the clock on my phone every thirty seconds, sure that if I didn’t escape the confines of my apartment disguised prison that I would surely cause a scene. Now, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure that no one has much sympathy for the Mayor’s daughter that hyperventilates due to the fact her cookie is gone. It just doesn’t seem feasible. I did escape my tormentors, never (hopefully) to see The Dans again, but the scar remained. I had an entire episode complete with a bout of schizophrenia over a cookie. Which wasn’t that good. And made me ill for hours, incidentally.
Take the other day, for another example: I was getting dressed for class, and when I put on my jeans I found a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. Yes, this means I don’t do laundry. Yes, I was elated. Yes, anyone would have been. Finding money is awesome. However, once I put the money in my bag, I started smiling, like an idiot, for seemingly no reason. Oh, but there was a reason. Suddenly, I became overjoyed by how much I loved pockets. Who thought of these little miracles? I mean, once Eve ate the forbidden fruit, pants were a pretty much obligatory way of life, but who was the genius that thought, I want to free the world of the burden of carrying things in their hands: put little bags in their pants. This is proof positive that there is a God and that he loves us all very much. If this isn’t enough, just think about macaroni and cheese and those markers that smell like Dimatap. Anyway, these thoughts consumed my entire day. I would be thinking about something else, completely unrelated, and then in a shining beam of light- pockets! That can’t be normal. It either has to be the act of a crazy woman, or a profoundly retarded one. I’m picking the lesser of two evils. I guess, though, if I am in fact profoundly retarded, there will come a time when my episodes grow too great to be handled by my family or loved ones, and I will be sent to a place where they feed me green Jell-o. So really, either way, win-win.
A couple of years ago, I was driving home from work, and it was late at night and I noticed something in the middle of the road; upon further inspection, I realized it was a cat. It had been run over, and was now dead. I pulled over and noticed its nametag: Tiger. I began to sob uncontrollably. I’m not a cat person, or any kind of animal rights advocate of any kind, but the thought of this cat- this pet- this creature that had been a part of a family was dead, and someone was going to have to wake up and find it. This was too much for me to retain composure. I worked out this entire scenario where the dad would wake up to get the paper and see Tiger (who he, secretly, never cared much for in the first place) lying lifeless in the middle of the street. He’d go in and tell his wife, although she would be too groggy to fully retain any kind of information until the word “dead” was used. Both of them would wonder what they would tell their daughter. She, after all, had named the beast. Tiger was her cat. At the age of five, she tormented her feline companion every second of every day, pulling its whiskers sending it sprinting down the hallway and under a bed. She would chase after it, squealing with glee and hold it close until it could wriggle from her clutches. A child’s love for an animal can be directly measured by how much they torture it, and she loved Tiger. I moved the cat onto the sidewalk so it wouldn’t be mangled any more and continued to cry on the side of the road for twenty minutes until I could finally see well enough to continue driving. I wasn’t crying because of the cat (which I’m sure sounds terrible, but it’s the truth) I was crying because this little fictitious family I had created was down a member, and they didn’t even know yet. Someone had to find it. I prayed it wasn’t going to be the little girl.
There are a million of these little peculiarities that I possess. If I’m driving on the freeway and I see a large object on the side of the road: dead body. I watch sad movies so I can cry. I’m not usually in a bad mood or anything, sometimes I just get tired of feeling bored, so I’ll create an artificial emotion. Before I do anything or go anywhere, I’ll generate innumerable scenarios for what could happen, thinking about what-if situations and figuring out my response to some really off the wall circumstances that never occur. I know every word to every song on the Paula Abdul album “Forever Your Girl”. I’m obsessed with doing bizarre things, just in case there’s ever a need for them: I can blow bubbles off my tongue, recite the alphabet backwards, and contort my body into all sorts of unreasonable positions- all on command, and all coming from a lot of practice time. I know more movie quotes than anyone I’ve ever met, and this is because I set out to have this talent. Due to a brief obsession, I am amazingly proficient in online IQ tests, and I am second only to my mom in my ability to play any Zelda game you throw at me. I have nearly psychotic breaks if anyone so much as mentions anything that has to do with changing anything that has to do with holidays- especially Christmas. I can make truly hideous faces, and I have tips on how to do so. I’m addicted to late-night infomercials. I laugh at my own jokes. All the time. Even when they’re over, I think about them later and laugh again. I stay up late at night doing nothing productive, choosing instead to write blogs.
All of this, though, is not why I’m crazy. I’m crazy because I can identify all of these “quirks”, and don’t change any of them. I buy Zelda games as soon as they come out, and don’t sleep until I’ve conquered them all. I see Superbad three times in the movie theater because I feel like I really need to be able to integrate the nuances of the movie in every day life. I will teach myself to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I will stay up late at night and write obscenely long blogs solely to entertain myself. I will continue to be crazy because without it, I’m not me. And, I’d rather be me and freak out about cookies, than someone else and be unrecognizable.
One of these cute little idiosyncrasies came out this weekend while I was in San Francisco with my dad. The first half of the first day was spent traveling around looking and apartment complexes. Super fun. We would drive from complex to complex, and then we would get out, survey it, and then everyone would talk about how great they were. I was sure in that moment why people hate white Republicans. I know that I am, in fact, a white Republican, and one day will inevitably walk around with a bunch of staunchy people I don’t know and talk about how great I am. It seems to be the burden of the beast. Anyway, these people just went walking around with this sense of elitism (at one point, I’m fairly confident that one of them had the sudden, nearly uncontrollable urge to pat me on the head), and all I could think of was how much I wanted one of the huge cookies I saw on the tray five feet ahead of me. This in and of itself isn’t crazy. I can guarantee you that anyone in my position would have tried to find any kind of solace in this sea of middle-aged men named Dan (I affectionately referred to them throughout the trip as “The Dans” due to the phenomena that they all had the same name), and a cookie was as good a salvation as any. What I can’t shake as being crazy is how much I obsessed about these cookies. I’m sure I went partially insane. I was having actual dialogue in my head about the cookies and how much I wanted to eat one, and whether or not they were homemade (definitely not, too big. Too perfect and identical). I posed questions to myself: When would be too soon to grab one? Which Dan would be the catalyst for the cookie feast? If I still wanted one, could I have two? Was it even appropriate to eat any? No one wanted to build apartments in my city. And so on.
Then the glorious moment arrived, and I devoured the cookie of my fantasies. I devoured it with a voraciousness that would suggest that I hadn’t eaten in days. Kind of like Charlie and the Chocolate factory when Charlie goes to get the chocolate for Grandpa Joe and has enough left over for one of his own. He then finds the golden ticket and later visits the scariest place imaginable, so that’s where our stories differ, but in that moment Charlie Bucket and I were kindred spirits. Once the cookie was done, though, I immediately felt completely nauseous and claustrophobic. It was as if the dream of the cookie had been enough to keep me from a complete breakdown, and once the dream was over, I had nothing left in the world. I began to sweat and look at the clock on my phone every thirty seconds, sure that if I didn’t escape the confines of my apartment disguised prison that I would surely cause a scene. Now, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure that no one has much sympathy for the Mayor’s daughter that hyperventilates due to the fact her cookie is gone. It just doesn’t seem feasible. I did escape my tormentors, never (hopefully) to see The Dans again, but the scar remained. I had an entire episode complete with a bout of schizophrenia over a cookie. Which wasn’t that good. And made me ill for hours, incidentally.
Take the other day, for another example: I was getting dressed for class, and when I put on my jeans I found a twenty-dollar bill in my pocket. Yes, this means I don’t do laundry. Yes, I was elated. Yes, anyone would have been. Finding money is awesome. However, once I put the money in my bag, I started smiling, like an idiot, for seemingly no reason. Oh, but there was a reason. Suddenly, I became overjoyed by how much I loved pockets. Who thought of these little miracles? I mean, once Eve ate the forbidden fruit, pants were a pretty much obligatory way of life, but who was the genius that thought, I want to free the world of the burden of carrying things in their hands: put little bags in their pants. This is proof positive that there is a God and that he loves us all very much. If this isn’t enough, just think about macaroni and cheese and those markers that smell like Dimatap. Anyway, these thoughts consumed my entire day. I would be thinking about something else, completely unrelated, and then in a shining beam of light- pockets! That can’t be normal. It either has to be the act of a crazy woman, or a profoundly retarded one. I’m picking the lesser of two evils. I guess, though, if I am in fact profoundly retarded, there will come a time when my episodes grow too great to be handled by my family or loved ones, and I will be sent to a place where they feed me green Jell-o. So really, either way, win-win.
A couple of years ago, I was driving home from work, and it was late at night and I noticed something in the middle of the road; upon further inspection, I realized it was a cat. It had been run over, and was now dead. I pulled over and noticed its nametag: Tiger. I began to sob uncontrollably. I’m not a cat person, or any kind of animal rights advocate of any kind, but the thought of this cat- this pet- this creature that had been a part of a family was dead, and someone was going to have to wake up and find it. This was too much for me to retain composure. I worked out this entire scenario where the dad would wake up to get the paper and see Tiger (who he, secretly, never cared much for in the first place) lying lifeless in the middle of the street. He’d go in and tell his wife, although she would be too groggy to fully retain any kind of information until the word “dead” was used. Both of them would wonder what they would tell their daughter. She, after all, had named the beast. Tiger was her cat. At the age of five, she tormented her feline companion every second of every day, pulling its whiskers sending it sprinting down the hallway and under a bed. She would chase after it, squealing with glee and hold it close until it could wriggle from her clutches. A child’s love for an animal can be directly measured by how much they torture it, and she loved Tiger. I moved the cat onto the sidewalk so it wouldn’t be mangled any more and continued to cry on the side of the road for twenty minutes until I could finally see well enough to continue driving. I wasn’t crying because of the cat (which I’m sure sounds terrible, but it’s the truth) I was crying because this little fictitious family I had created was down a member, and they didn’t even know yet. Someone had to find it. I prayed it wasn’t going to be the little girl.
There are a million of these little peculiarities that I possess. If I’m driving on the freeway and I see a large object on the side of the road: dead body. I watch sad movies so I can cry. I’m not usually in a bad mood or anything, sometimes I just get tired of feeling bored, so I’ll create an artificial emotion. Before I do anything or go anywhere, I’ll generate innumerable scenarios for what could happen, thinking about what-if situations and figuring out my response to some really off the wall circumstances that never occur. I know every word to every song on the Paula Abdul album “Forever Your Girl”. I’m obsessed with doing bizarre things, just in case there’s ever a need for them: I can blow bubbles off my tongue, recite the alphabet backwards, and contort my body into all sorts of unreasonable positions- all on command, and all coming from a lot of practice time. I know more movie quotes than anyone I’ve ever met, and this is because I set out to have this talent. Due to a brief obsession, I am amazingly proficient in online IQ tests, and I am second only to my mom in my ability to play any Zelda game you throw at me. I have nearly psychotic breaks if anyone so much as mentions anything that has to do with changing anything that has to do with holidays- especially Christmas. I can make truly hideous faces, and I have tips on how to do so. I’m addicted to late-night infomercials. I laugh at my own jokes. All the time. Even when they’re over, I think about them later and laugh again. I stay up late at night doing nothing productive, choosing instead to write blogs.
All of this, though, is not why I’m crazy. I’m crazy because I can identify all of these “quirks”, and don’t change any of them. I buy Zelda games as soon as they come out, and don’t sleep until I’ve conquered them all. I see Superbad three times in the movie theater because I feel like I really need to be able to integrate the nuances of the movie in every day life. I will teach myself to solve a Rubik’s Cube. I will stay up late at night and write obscenely long blogs solely to entertain myself. I will continue to be crazy because without it, I’m not me. And, I’d rather be me and freak out about cookies, than someone else and be unrecognizable.
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