Daily Archives: May 4, 2008

finding emo.

Posted on by
10

Once there was a little fish named Meg.

She wasn’t actually that little. Actually, kind of round. But not too long, so still technically little.

What Meg wanted more than anything in the world was to have little fish fry. Not fried fish, mind you, because that would be weird, considering that she was a fish.

(In fact, just tonight Meg learned the name for baby fish, and it sounds about as suitable as calling baby pigs, “Bacon”.)

A couple years ago, Meg learned that she could not have fry of her own. This was tough, but she kept swimming and breathing as best she could through her gills and looking on the bright side. Which was up, since the sun reflects on the water.

And she knew she would be okay, eventually.

What she also knew is that she’d take someone else’s fry to be her fry.

Kind of like she used to at McDonald’s when she got the small size and wanted more and someone wasn’t looking.

But that isn’t really how adoption works.

That’s more kidnapping, and for that they put you in the Fish Gulag. Otherwise known as Petco.

Wait, where is this going?

Tonight, I watched Juno. Which everyone has been telling me to see, because a) apparently I am Juno-esque, save for my inability to bake buns in my home oven; and b) I would write a movie like this, left to my own devices. Apparently.

And it made me cry, of course, because it’s not just about Juno, but about Vanessa, who wanted to be a mom so badly… and then she was.

As I will be, one day.

Probably not by myself, because hello, I am too lazy for such things. Really. I’d get even less sleep and then walk fatally into a wall or something.

But I want it more than anything. And I believe I will be good at it. I don’t need to bake my own bun to love the warm bun-ness of it all.

Which is where the tears come from. Not out of sadness, but just knowing something good is coming and so why not blubber about it?

Because that’s what I do.

Or, you know… I can always just get some fries.

there is nothing easy about mirrors.

Posted on by
4

When I leave my house in the morning, I usually take one last peek at myself in the mirror by the door to make sure that I haven’t left a velcro roller in (I have, twice), that there’s no toothpaste around my mouth (because foaming at the mouth is something people might not want you to do on transit) or that I haven’t neglected to put on clothing (because, you know, I get distracted.)

Sometimes that glance makes me cringe, because I notice some random, wiry gray hair sticking up from my head like a flag on the moon, or because my eyes look puffed out like Large Marge from the Pee Wee movie.

I always walk away, though, because what can you do? That’s how I look. Put on some music, and let’s go.

That cursory check is just about equal to the amount of time I’ve spent walking through my own head lately.

I pop in to make sure nothing has blown up or caught on fire, and then I head out again, secure in the knowledge things will hold for one more day, or one more week, or however long it takes me to notice blood running out one ear from the sheer pressure of thoughts piling up.

Now, you might laugh when I say that, given the reality that I am both a writer and a blogger. This must mean I have cornered the market on navel gazing and self-reflection and BLAH BLAH BLAH THE VOICE OF MY HEART. And you are welcome to. I know all this is madness on some level.

But I’m awfully good at wading around in my own head and splashing enough that you might think I’ve gone deeper.

“She’s soaked. She must have gone for a swim.”

Nope. Shallow end.

It’s easier that way.

Then again, completely not.

So I dove in just now and looked a little harder in the mirror (and any other metaphors I could possibly include to indicate I was paying attention to my insides for a sec.)

You know what?

It’s a bit rough in there.

I feel like I’ve been passive about a lot of things, selfish about a lot of things, ignorant about a lot of things, confused about a lot of things, wrong about a lot of things, and pessimistic about a lot of things.

Not the positive, jolly, Love Listing girl who comes back grinning like an inflatable clown punching bag, no sir.

Just weary. And a bit lame.

I could chalk it up to being sick, and the fact that I needed to stay on the surface to keep going. Because that lasted a hell of a long time, and isn’t over yet. But that’s no great excuse. All I had was pneumonia, not the Black Plague.

I could chalk it up to being busy, but eh. Busy is busy. I’m going to be busier someday, so I better learn to be a human being through it now.

But regardless of the why, I’ve been silent here, mostly.

Because this is a mirror.

And I was running by.

If I don’t like what I see, though, I need to DO something, not just walk away.

That doesn’t mean I want to stand there and stare into the core of my soul for hours. That’s not helpful to anyone. That doesn’t make life go forward. That doesn’t make me a better person.

It just makes me a lameass who is abundantly versed in my own lameassedness.

No, I’d rather be a lameass who looks long enough to see why, and then stops. And learns. And evolves. And gets on with it.

It’s a seconds-longer action, but it makes all the difference.

So I’ll try.