Head Trauma

There are dozens of things I should be doing at the moment—studying German, a Family History assignment, cleaning my room and doing laundry—but I’m so sad and so distracted, and all I want is to fly at you and cling to you and make you tell me it’s okay and smooth my hair. I miss you, especially now, especially during the times that are hardest to bear.

My first reaction in these situations is to recoil, to shut up and keep to myself and not say a word, not because I don’t want to tell people or allow others to sympathize but because I don’t know how to say it. I don’t know how to be eloquent and meaningful with my words in these cases. I feel awkward and stupid, like everything that comes out is some form of word vomit, desperate for sentiment but completely lacking.


When my grandmother died last year, I think the number of people I physically told is so few, I could count them on one hand. My friend Justin was visiting from Seattle. He kept text messaging and calling me the day she died. I didn’t have the heart to pick up the phone, nor the words to express my pain, so I basically ignored him. I wrote him back at one point in the afternoon to tell him, My grandma is really sick and things are crazy with my family. I’ll keep in touch. She had been dead six-and-a-half hours by then, and I didn’t keep in touch.

It’s not that I didn’t expect him to be sympathetic. He would have been very kind about the whole thing, and was kind, in fact, under the impression she hadn’t passed yet. He was genuine, though I was deceiving him in my crazy, personal defense mechanism. It was almost like I couldn’t tell him the truth without having the words to articulate the extent of my sadness. I would rather be left alone in my grief, though I wanted the company and support, than to lamely inform him of something that should be so much more significant than I’m able to express.


But I wish you were here for me to tell you. I wouldn’t mind just blurting it out all at once with no special language, but all the emotion in the world. I know you would understand, too. I know that you understand how special our little girl is and what a presence she is in this family. You would understand our sense of loss and appreciate how we mourn. You’d understand the balance between letting me fold myself into your arms, and letting me have my space.


My mom has an irrational fear of flying. It’s an admittedly irrational fear. She knows it is, openly acknowledges it, but it doesn’t make the process any easier. She takes her “doggie downers” an hour before take-off like clockwork, and keeps the bottle of pills tucked safely into the seat pocket in case of turbulence, mild or severe. She’s got a relaxation CD uploaded onto her iPod that literally talks her through take-off, landing, and any number of unexpected events in flight—like an unexplained flash of the Fasten Seat Belt sign.

It’s difficult for Mom to help others understand her fear. Others think it’s funny, or frustrating. It’s easier not to go into detail about it, so she doesn’t. No one is any closer to understanding why she feels the way she does, but at least she doesn’t get frustrated herself.


The most difficult thing is watching my dad suffer. We suffer together, but he is very alone in many ways. My dad has always been the strong one—absolutely emotional and feeling, but in our estrogen-driven family, he keeps a sense of equilibrium. There are few deaths that would affect him quite so specifically. One occurred last year. We never in a thousand years expected a second just a year later. The relationship is so very, very different. It’s almost more heartbreaking that way. This little baby is a Daddy’s Girl through and through. From day one he was Alpha, she thought she was Beta. My poor dad. My heart breaks twice for him.

And he can’t say the words either. He can’t call his sister, his best friend. He can’t call them up and just say it. How do you say it? How do you tell them without breaking down completely? He’s about to lose his running companion, the tail that literally wagged the dog with excitement at the top of the stairs when he came home from work each day, his third child, in essence. He must explain what he’s going to lose. He must face them, and in facing them, he faces the truth of it. You’re far away—you aren’t even here for me to face. It’s easier and harder that way, all at the same time.


Times like this clarify how truly empty words are. No matter how hard I try, it will not be possible for me to explain how I am affected right now. I cannot communicate the extent of my impending sense of loss or make you feel what I’m feeling. A very unique little light in my world is flickering off, and there is no way I can effectively convey my pain in words.

Language is limited. Language is vast, it is varied, and theoretically I should be able to mold words in such a way as to force you to feel, see, hear, smell, taste my pain. I should be able to take these bottled emotions and allow them to explode onto a blank page, somehow resulting in heartbreaking, life-changing genius. My descriptions should be so vivid that you understand you are the one I want right now, why you are the one who could make things all right.

But I don’t know how to be lovely and tragic and verbally intriguing. I don’t have the energy or the focus to wrangle words and shape sentences in such a way that I might express the inexpressible. I’m tired and beaten.

Bonny is dying. I need you.

Fairest

I wrote this for my Creative Writing class final. Ashley said Alli would like it. Let me know what all ya'll think, please! Sorry it's kind of long.

_____________________

“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags. Even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young, they’re still princesses. All of us.”

I try to repeat this to myself when I’m feeling particularly self-deprecating. I am a princess. All girls are. There’s no one in the world who can make me feel badly about myself except myself. People can only hurt me with my permission. I’m only inferior to those I allow to be superior to me. Those who tear down others are only compensating for their own low self-esteem.

If all girls are princesses, that means I’m a princess too. Is it possible to be the princess and the witch in my own fairytale?

Everyone thinks the pretty girls always have it easy. Pretty girls have confidence. They have great hair, and boys like them. Being pretty somehow makes their lives sunny and successful—like everything is possible if you're pretty.

I think it's the less fortunate looking girls who have it best. They're not ugly or self-loathing enough to let the pretty girls walk all over them. They gain confidence from the talents they have and actually develop. The kind of boys who like these girls are the ones most Pretty Girls would rather date anyway, though they'll never admit it. Being extraordinary can be terrifying and uncomfortable, especially when you're extraordinary trait is something you can't take any credit for yourself.

Once, in late November, Mother took me downtown to the most overpriced shop on the street. It was her favorite. She wore red leather gloves as she held my hand, leading me down the street at a light clip, and a perfect snowflake caught on the cuff of her black coat. It held there for a moment, long enough to demand the beginning of a smile from the corners of my mouth, before it disappeared and melted in a moment as it surrendered to the heat of wool. It stole my smile with it.

"Don't stare," Mother scolded, her tone a song and a hiss all at once. I forced my dark eyes forward, away from the displays of perfumes, and snakeskin purses, and dozen-carat diamonds. Each saleswoman seemed the mistress of her counter, milking each customer and convincing them to buy hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise they certainly did not need, would probably never use. They dressed and wore their hair the same. The only difference between them, to me, was the varying colors of their perfect complexions.

We stopped in front of a counter featuring my mother's favorite brand of particularly expensive make up. She tore off my coat in one fluid movement and I found myself plopped into a high chair, my knees even with the edge of the glass. I absently smoothed the skirt of my deep purple party dress and studied the shadow my kitten-heeled feet cast on the brightly lit products in front of me. I wondered how hard I would need to kick to break it and what my mother's reaction would be.

I didn't pay attention to the conversation exchanged between her and the cosmetologist. I simply sat still, playing with the tasseled end of my black velvet sash, and allowed the layers of color to be smeared and blended and buffed onto my face. It smelled lightly perfumed, like flowers, not like chemicals. "We pay for the natural minerals," Mother explained once. I never understood her reasoning. To me, make up always seemed anything but natural.

A mirror was held in front of my face to gauge my reaction when the woman had finished. I looked like me, but the face in the mirror wasn't me. Her eyes were more defined, set off by a light sweep of lilac shadow and violet liner. Her lips were perfectly red, and flawlessly highlighted cheekbones. Though it wasn't the reflection I was accustomed to seeing, it wasn't disappointing, and a half-smile slowly crept back from its hiding place. I looked to my mother, as ever, for approval and she spoke to me in a way I had never heard before or since. "There," she breathed into my ear as she peered into the mirror beside me, satisfied. "Who is the fairest one of all?"

I was eleven when she whispered that phrase into my ear. It became my mantra. Some people recite verses of scripture to buoy themselves up before they wage war on the day. Others Dr. Seuss or the words of an inspirational public figure. Who's the fairest one of all? I would ask myself, hesitating before I looked up to the mirror, uneasy at the thought of confronting the reflection. I would look, set my shoulders back, and take a deep breath. You are the fairest one of all.

The face in the mirror would answer every time with her perfectly rounded, crimson lips each time I asked her. She had grown since the first time I saw her at that make up counter, my mother's smiling face next to her. Her eyes are larger, dark and unsettled, though some might call it alluring. The hair that was once limp and mousy blonde is positively golden, teased to perfection in a cascade of curls down her shoulders. Our shoulders. My shoulders.

Years ago, Mother arranged for us a standing appointment with Rafael every six weeks. Nothing stood in the way of these appointments. She simply paid off the professor who thoughtlessly scheduled a conflicting final my sophomore year of college. We'd sit beside each other with matching silk smocks as his interns shampooed, trimmed, dried, and colored our hair in matching styles. He spoke with a heavy, unidentifiable European accent, though I overheard him on a personal call once with the thickest New Jersey accent I had ever heard. We were offered lovely drinks served in colorful glasses—mineral water for me until I was old enough for the wine spritzers Mother loved. Jacques, her gray toy poodle, always sat clutched under her right arm. Jacques tended to shake like he was perpetually chilly, his frazzled curly fur sticking straight out from his ears and his little beady stare nervously flitting from sight to sight. Mother bought Jacques a red sweater to stop his shaking, but I knew better. He wasn’t cold—he was scared, and powerless, and sensible enough to know he couldn’t do a thing about it.

You are the fairest one of all. It typically took a few repetitions to make myself sound convinced. The curious gaze was never swayed.

I didn’t try to be mean to the girls in my class growing up. They found me snobbish and rude because I tended to observe, rather than participate. I was raised on comparison. Who is wealthier, who is more capable, who is more beautiful? Despite my mother’s constant assurance I was the most beautiful, it was never enough. My face, my hair, my clothes were always molded, tailored to take me one step beyond myself. I didn’t associate with most of the girls my age because I was afraid of them. Their normalcy threatened me. It made me sad.

All girls are princesses, but Haley was a princess who wore glasses. Marie had frizzy hair, and Amber was overweight for her age. Though the special care my mother took to make me the Pretty Girl made me uneasy, it also armed me with a strange sense of arrogance. The other parents didn’t want their girls to be more than mediocre. My mother didn’t love me the way I was, she loved me more. She wanted me to be better than myself—she demanded it of me. Wasn’t that an indication of how much she cared?

But my true feelings were conflicting. I felt superior to these girls, more entitled to attention, affection. At the same time I acknowledged the insecurity and recognition that I couldn’t just be me, I had to be a heightened version of me. As a child, it made me do things I didn’t understand.

Cutting geometric shapes out of construction paper in math, I played with the oversized green plastic scissors in my hand. They were hardly sharp enough to cut this paper, the ugliest shade of orange imaginable. I opened and closed them a few times, listening carefully to the gentle swish as the blades passed by each other. I looked up to the back of Taylor’s head. She was hunched over her work at the desk in front of me, at her bright yellow sweater set off her stringy, dishwater-blonde hair that rested in clumps on her back. I hated her, suddenly. I hated her hair and I hated that her parents found her appearance acceptable. It made my skin crawl with revulsion and jealousy. Before I could internalize my actions, I reached forward and snipped off a four inch chunk of that disgusting hair.

It stuck to her back, static electricity keeping it in place for the remainder of the class period. When the bell rang I already had my supplies put away and my books packed up, so I threw my royal blue backpack over my shoulder and ran out of class before the offensive hair could be discovered. I’m not sure what Taylor’s reaction was, nor the teacher’s for that matter, but no one ever blamed me for wrongdoing.

She came to class the next morning with her hair cut into a charming bob, the ends of her hair dancing level with her chin. Taylor didn’t smile for a week, but I did, proud of myself for assisting with such a needed, successful change. Mother would have been proud, too.

My favorite subject in school was science. I went on to get a degree in Chemistry at Yale, to the surprise of my high school social circle that graduated by the skin of their teeth. Pretty Girls hang around other Pretty Girls, regardless of mental capacity or scholastic achievement. Mother didn't understand my academic ambition but figured it would include me—and therefore, her—in a new class of society, a new brand of wealth and glamour. "I'm starting to see what you find appealing in these intellectual types," she teased one evening at a gala held in honor of the university's donors. She laughed like the girl she fancied herself to be, not the woman she had become—melodic and childish. Incidentally, my mother's passion for education was as fleeting as her affair with the dean.

I felt more comfortable in the lab than I had ever felt before. It was quiet, and isolated. I smirked and wondered what Mother would think of my appearance—hair pulled back tight and my face hidden beneath a set of protective goggles, a shapeless white lab coat covering my gym-sculpted body. Gloves covered my manicured nails and I wore comfortable, worn in New Balance sneakers to compensate for hours on my feet. The image would frighten her.

For my senior project I researched and developed a basic antidote for a number of poisonous household cleaning products. My professors were pleased, and encouraged me to pursue higher levels of education. Time continued to pass the way it seemed to most of my life, in an odd sort of suspended reality, blurry and distorted. I only seemed to gain clarity mixing powders and chemicals, testing their reactions and working alongside some of the most brilliant educators in the field.

Ironically, my first job out of school was with the very brand of make up my mother supplied since I was little more than a child. I began as a lab assistant, securing promotion after promotion until I began one of the chief technicians. We develop new products, testing for quality, and we always use natural ingredients. It seems so trite. It seems like a waste of my education to be limited to an industry, a line of cosmetics that does not exactly promote the schooling it took to get me here. At least I’ve got my shapeless white lab coat.

I set up a miniature laboratory in my basement. I don’t know what it is I’m trying to find or trying to prove, but I mix and assess what I can get my hands on. A small part of me is afraid I’m going to start concocting something destructive merely because I can—because I have the capacity and learning to do so. I don’t think I ever will. The knowledge that I could is enough.

I met a man last year. His name is Jacob, and he is tall and slim but strong. When he holds me, I rest my chin on his chest and look up in his face, and I can’t help but smile because he’s smiling at me. His whole face smiles—not just his mouth, but his eyes, and the little scrunch in his nose, and creases in his forehead, and his dimples. He has dimples.

Jacob has very dark hair that is not quite black, partially because it’s graying here and there. It only makes him more handsome. His is the kind of hair that just begs to be played with, and he indulges me. I love to tuck my nose into the fold of his collar because he doesn’t smell pretentious and manly, like he’s compensating for something. He smells safe, and warm, and that’s how I feel when I’m with him.

He is the CEO and co-owner of the company I work for, but is not one of those business types who is obsessed with himself and his company. I love when he pops in to see me, no matter how late he’s running for a very important meeting. He will kiss the end of my nose and tell me, “You’re so beautiful,” with this little hint of awe like he can’t believe I’d have him.

Jacob is a widower of five years, and he tells me I have reminded him that it’s possible to love again. I was worried at first, afraid I wouldn’t be able to measure up to the woman he loved for so long, but the way he looks at me, with such overwhelming adoration and tenderness, sets my heart and mind at rest. Since him, I usually forget to look myself in the mirror and repeat my morning mantra. I don’t need it anymore.

. . . . .

It has been nearly seven years since I married Jacob. We live in a perfectly lovely home, large and beautiful but not more than we need, though we could afford much more. The initial dreamlike euphoria of our relationship has not exactly worn off, but it has changed. He is as good to me as ever. He leaves me flowers at work now and then, and cooks dinner most nights in spite of his own long days. He jokes that I am the queen of this company, given his position, and should anything happen, I stand to inherit his title and all the wealth he has acquired. I don’t like it when he reminds me of that, even in joking.

Perhaps what has changed is not his affection toward me, but the way I internalize it. He has only grown more dear, more loving and patient, but I find myself suspicious, almost as though he’s got motives I can’t detect or understand. No matter how often my sensibility reassures me, there remains a sinking feeling that he wants something from me—that I’m only a trophy wife to show off at parties. I never express my concern, however. It would hurt him too much.

What worries me most is my recent dependence on my girlish mantra. Who is the fairest one of all? I have not needed to ask myself that question in years. In my marriage, I not only gained a husband, but a step-daughter from Jacob's first wife. She has always been the darling of her father’s eye, a gorgeous, if not strange looking, child. Her hair is darker than night, and her skin light and perfect as a porcelain doll. On any other child, her features would be odd and spooky, but she is so sweet and peaceful, and carries herself with such an endearing innocence.

As she’s grown I’ve realized she is what my mother always wanted me to be, only she doesn’t need changing. She is more a princess than any other little girl I’ve ever met with natural grace and beauty. Her laugh is like music, and she sings like an angel. She is becoming, without any effort, the child I should have been. She adores me, though lately I give her no reason to, and calls me Mother because I am the only one she’s ever known. Each of her faultless traits, her flawless features, increasingly grates on my nerves with each birthday, giving me less and less reason to despise her but more and more inclination to do so. I try to love her for Jacob's sake.

I’m beginning to hate her.

Cheers to Marty Feldman

This is my latest attempt for my creative writing class. I chose to write a Spenserian sonnet about my thyroid-- I mean, what else?


No school, no life, just wasting time, but not
On purpose—no. How many times has this
episode played? The days blur. Did I miss
class again? A test? Oh well… I’d have thought
Myself to be more careful. Where’s my head?
Can’t focus—my eyes are affected—I
Know it’s not what you think. Discouraged by
Unhelpful doctors, I climb back in bed.
I’m nocturnal now. Emotions are prone
To extremes. Can you blame me? One listened.
Labs proved his inkling. Though I am frightened,
To know the throat-lodged butterfly alone
Is the culprit makes me oddly heartened—
It may be Grave, but better than Unknown.

Psychobilly Freakout

I'm lying on our loveseat, legs hanging on the over-sized armrest. My neck is uncomfortable on this little, unfeeling throw pillow. This loveseat reminds me a little bit of Steve's Thinking Chair on Blue's Clues-- though I guess Steve "went off to college," so now it's Joe's Thinking Chair. I'm trying to concentrate on this book-- A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-- which I really like so far and highly recommend, but for whatever reason I can't seem to pull myself away from the computer. I'm checking my usual round of websites every, what? seven minutes, as if anyone new will pop on and say something to me.

So I have the ridiculous machine sitting on my lap so I don't have to adjust very much when I finish five pages of this book and decide it's time to make my rounds again. As if anything new will actually be there.

Eff eff eff eff eff eff eff eff effity eff eff eff eff. Fuh until eternity. I probably won't make it to Eternity for saying fuh. Sometimes I wish swearing came more naturally to me. I think there's probably nothing like a perfectly fitting curse word now and then, but my little swears are too cutesy. They're usually funny, regardless of how much fury or discontent is behind them. I have a lot of discontent behind them tonight. Not much fury. I have nothing to be furious over. But oh, I'm empassioned.

I wonder if my arm tossed carelessly over my face makes me look pathetic? No. Just tired. It's a tragedy when forced pathos is wasted on unappreciating and unobservant roommates.

What would it be like for him to kiss me? I wonder if he's the type that doesn't like mouth-kisses best. I don't know what kind of kisses I like best. I like all kisses best. Except when they're in front of a Halo tournament when you're 15-- those kinds of kisses can be remembered with a very awkward juxtaposing sense of nausea and nostalgia. My Halo Champion's mouth tasted like Winterfresh gum. My stomach turned a little bit when I tasted that gum in the weeks following that night.

But this one wouldn't stoop so low as to take advantage of my vulnerability during a Halo tournament. I can almost feel his perfectly, carefully unshaven chin in that specific place in my neck and it gives me a little thrill-- not in a dirty way. Or at least, not in a very dirty way. It would be much more thrilling in person, if he were here on the loveseat with me, pulling this silly computer off my lap so he could fold me into his arms and neck-kiss me, and ear-kiss me, and nose-kiss me-- and of course mouth-kiss me, even though it's not his favorite. There might even be a little sense of urgency because he literally doesn't know what else to do with himself, we're just so compatible. And I could smell his hair, and it would smell lightly of styling products. He wouldn't be wearing any kind of pretentious Man Scent like Axe because he's too good for that, too secure for that. And his mouth wouldn't taste like Winterfresh gum, such an obvious and presumptuous preparation for the moment. His mouth would taste distinctly like him, and there would be no way for me to convey what that tastes like.

Yes, maybe I do know a little what it would be like for him to kiss me.

I have half a mind to just get up and start walking down the street, reciting Lady Macbeth's soliloquies. Out damned spot, I will shriek as moronic girls jog by with their trendy iPods, listening to their trendy music, absolutely ignorant of the bad people that do indeed lurk in Provo, much to everyones' surprise. That's the beauty of this campus-- people allow other people to do pretty much whatever they want when it comes to crazies, and they just jog by with hardly a glance. I could scream To bed! To bed! To bed! all I want and no one would bother me about it. Somehow, though, I tend to doubt yelling lines of Shakespeare will change whatever it is I'm feeling.

I want adventure in the great, wide Somewhere. I want it more than I can tell.

What am I even doing with my life? I'm not excellent at anything. I'm mediocre at a lot of things. What have I been doing that I haven't thrown myself into something so important to me that it's difficult to breathe when I can't do that thing? They say being well rounded is a good thing. I want to know who "they" is so I can tell them "they" have another thing coming. Someday I will be the "they" that everyone refers to. Ha ha! What do you think about that?

Ode to Quiet

I wrote this last night when I was lounging on Ashley's couch. It's true.

_____________________________

Amidst chaos, surrounded by the loud,

Abrasive, contentious, sharply trenchant

Self-int'rest of an egocentric crowd—

Marked by a crushing lack of sentient

Awareness regarding time, place, peopleaq

Who are subject to impending deadlines

Would rather ignore priv'leged tête-à-têtes,

Or suffer from short patience—I resign

To blood-boiling madness, long for simple

Peacefulness enjoyed in blessed Quiet.

Oh Quiet, where serenity abides!

Where composure thrives and efficiency

May reign! Capacity to think resides!

She inhabits a certain courtesy,

Absent in the oblivious nature

Of shrill laughter and screaming conversation

In confined spaces. Smiling countenance

Prevails, adhering to mindful conscience.

Sweet, dear Quiet—how I long to capture

Your stillness, your calm, your anti-tension…

What I'm actually going to turn in for Creative Writing

Writing Pains
Emily Dabczynski

I have this thing where I feel like I can’t write very well. I’m not dreadfully confident about what I can do. I have an overwhelming love-hate relationship with words that has been known to drive me close to tears. Occasionally I become so involved in a paper that it’s the only thing I can think about. The topic and my vision for what is sure to be a masterpiece pounds relentlessly at my conscious until I set all else aside, pounding my creativity into a literary pulp.

But who likes pulp? The orange juice with pulp is always in stock at the grocery store. Why buy juice with pulp if you can buy juice without pulp?

Pulp.

Pulp.

It stops sounding like a word when you repeat it enough times.

I don’t feel like I can write well without someone giving me a topic. Like Saturday Night Live’s Linda Richman—“Chickpea. Neither a chick, nor a pea. Discuss.” How would you like to have that for a prompt? None of this introspective, uncomfortable stuff. Just write about the key ingredient in hummus and Burmese tofu. Now there's a. Oh, didn’t you know chickpeas were used in Burmese tofu? Neither did I, until I checked Wikipedia.

...

I’ve always been influenced by authors I’m reading. Imitation is supposedly the sincerest form of flattery, but in my case, I occasionally have wondered if it’s flat-out, unintentional plagiarism. Well of course it’s not actual plagiarism, but give a week for the immediate admiration to wear off and I might return to a piece thinking, Who in the world wrote this? Why is my name at the top of this page? This isn’t me.

It’s some kind of an idealized me, I think. It goes back to those insecurities about not being able to write. I’ve always been able to imitate fairly well. I give a great deal of credit to observation and imitation when it comes to any success I’ve had studying dance and acting. Plato hated theatre because he felt people should study real life instead of wasting time watching others portray real life. What does it say about me that I acquire performance skills by watching others in their portrayals of characters? To me, that somehow puts a whole new meaning on the Six Degrees of Separation.

It’s not surprising that I did relatively well on an assignment last year in which our class had to write a poetry in the styles of the time periods we were studying. We had to put ourselves in the Romantic Period, for instance, and create a piece in such a way that we might trick others into believing it was written by an obscure author during that time. I worked really hard on that piece. I got an A. I have a nagging feeling everyone in the class got full credit for effort, even if they sucked.

...

One of the main problems with my lack of confidence when it comes to writing is the irresistible attraction I have toward Hollywood. If I can’t be on the screen, I’d love to be on the writing staff of a wildly successful television series. Television might be my calling—you never know. The idea of writing years’ worth of material for an Emmy winning ensemble is so vastly more appealing than writing one lousy blockbuster. How many film series have actually been successful? The Land Before Time, while sweetened by years, and years, and years of nostalgia, doesn’t quite stack up to Star Wars.

Well, it might stack up to Attack of the Clones.

And I hardly need to mention Bridget Jones and her buddies who run that Daddy Daycare.

But think of all the brilliant television series’ that only gain popularity with each passing season. Heroes is currently the highest rated series of all time. The Simpsons has only bettered with age. Seinfeld-isms have made it into mainstream slang, used even by people who don’t know the origin of “man hands,” for example. I’m stunned that the creators and writers of Law & Order can keep the series running for 17 years, continue to develop new and interesting plots, and support a number of subsequent spin-off shows.

Then there are those writers who do it all, like the cast of The Office. The staff collaborates on every minute detail of every single episode, and at the end of the day, half of them get to appear as members of the cast to boot.

Sign me up for that gig. If I can latch onto any confidence, anyway.

...

I tried to be a spy once when I was ten years old. On the first page of a fresh new journal I vowed to write down everything I saw, just the way I saw it. I think my vow was the opening lines to Harriet the Spy, verbatim.

...

My biggest frustration is when I want so desperately for an idea to gel together. I had a paper all mapped out, fully researched, and I was so excited for it to come together as only my wildest dreams could produce. Evidently, truly it could only be produced in my wildest dreams.

It was going to be about the 1919 Boston Molasses Flood in which a tank of molasses on the North End exploded, sending 2.3 million gallons of hot, sticky molasses careening down the street at a whopping 35 miles-per-hour. The wave was at least 15 feet high. It sounds ridiculous and unfathomable, which is why so many think their leg is being pulled when they first hear about it. Giggles are stifled, though, when they go on to learn that 21 people died, including a 9-year old boy whose body was found four days later and was so unrecognizable that his own father was forced to identify him by his red sweater. Jaws drop when they hear of the minimum of 150 more that were injured. One man, pinned beneath a pool table in a collapsed building, was transformed from a healthy, middle-aged father to a crippled old man in a single afternoon. His dark brown hair bleached white in the few hours he was trapped, and his broken back would never heal so that he could stand upright ever again. Dozens of horses would be so enmeshed in the congealing liquid that rescue workers simply shot them to put them out of their misery. $1 million worth of damage--$100 million, by today’s standards—was reeked on the area, and vestiges of molasses were found throughout the entire city for years to come.

It’s kind of the perfect shocking event to base a paper on. The story is highly intriguing, one of those footnotes in history you read about and wonder how you never heard of it before. I had it perfectly planned out write—mosaic structure, with a combination of narrative, quotes from the thousands of pages of court testimony, and even a recipe for these molasses spice cookies my grandma used to make. The juxtaposition of a horrifying tragedy and a sweet cookie recipe was going to be fantastically effective.

The act of reaching creative perfection was a whole separate story altogether, however. There wasn’t much research to labor over, considering only one good book has been written about the flood. The difficulty was fitting all the pieces together the way I envisioned. So much information in only 8 pages!

Hours and hours later, I was positively, maddeningly stumped, but I was so excited about the possibilities that could come from this topic that I was unwilling to even consider another—another angle, another subject. Sure, professional writers regularly take years to finish what they begin, but an 8-page unit final was surely not worth the amount of self-loathing that was weighing on me, physical and oppressive in my chest.

...

“Late at night, my mind would come alive with voices and stories and friends as dear to me as any in the real world. I gave myself up to it, longing for transformation.” So says Josephine March, my self-proclaimed fictional alter-ego. I long for it too. How I do.

...

It’s strange how people can take for granted the natural talents they have. My sister is of those people who are just good at everything she tries, so when she works, even just a little bit, she’s extra-good at it. She’ll probably be an Grammy-winning jazz trombone player and singer, a successful business owner, a sports therapist, a bestselling novelist, and the star of a Broadway musical, all before she turns 30. I’ve got talents of my own, to be sure, but not the way my proverbial green-eyes would prefer.

And we’re prone to wanting what we don’t have. There would be no need to want a thing if it was already ours. That’s where the pain creeps in—the pure, unadulterated aching for perfection in whatever we chase after. I yearn for a true love affair with words. I crave the ability to mold and shape sentences in such a way that I might express the inexpressible. I covet masterful authority of the English language, and envy those who have the incomparable capacity to whip and beat an idea into linguistic submission. I don’t want to face frustration and disappointment in doing a thing I so desperately want to love.

George Bernard Shaw said, “Words are only postage stamps delivering the object you wish to unwrap.” I think he means to be positive, maybe even encouraging.

Funny. I’m not encouraged.

Unfulfillment

There is one problem when it comes to being a night owl. Whether I intentionally throw responsibility out the window or simply glance at the clock with the horrifying realization I’ve allowed myself to stay awake for the dreaded hour, I find myself overcome by an undeniable, driving compulsion to write. Many long for this feeling, for the rush of euphoria that accompanies the potential development of little plot-bunnies hopping out of their metaphorical skins. If I were one to conform, I might be able to find secret satisfaction in the stolen darkness.

Unfortunately, no matter how deep and obnoxious The Itch, the Muse rarely provides concrete inspiration for all her nagging. And that’s my one problem.

So I sit and stare at my computer screen, a blank document opened on Word, soft strains of Travis filling my ears as I drum my fingers against the keyboard. Travis is an interesting blend of folk and alternative rock, depending on the song. At the moment there seems to be an unmistakable throw-back to Simon and Garfunkel. I certainly hope it’s intentional. The similarities are almost too identifiable, right down to the specifically placed “ahhhs” in the chorus.

I find The Itch is particularly strong after I’ve spent a few days reading New York Times’ Best Sellers. I have to confess—more times than not, I’m overly wary of the New York Times’ Best Sellers list. Maybe it’s just the English Literature Major snob coming out in me, but I tend to think a lot of the stuff on that list is kind of crappy. Conventional, relatively unoriginal, and more often than not, a predictable makeover of an already popular classic in some form or another. Somewhere, deep inside of me, I have to recognize that relentless force that insists I could contrive something at least as good—probably better, should I take the time to concentrate on it. Like that line from Little Women, “I intend to astonish you all.”

Look out New York Times’ Best Seller List: that means you.

But for all my good intentions, a few glaring facts linger. First of all, though inspired by insipid plot-lines and undeveloped characters, I remain the unfulfilled, unpublished author while those Best Sellers pad the wallets of B-grade writers.

Of course they don’t know they’re B-grade writers yet because I haven’t emerged. I’m just waiting to make my entrance, waiting for the right moment. You know, for dramatic effect.

Secondly, I have this problem where I start to write like the authors I’m currently reading. So while my writing tends to have a relatively steady “voice,” the way in which that “voice” is presented depends entirely on the initial source of The Itch. This may or may not be beneficial. On the one hand, those “voices” are popular, hence their Best Seller titles. On the other, one of the reasons I long to write something mind-blowing is to prove to the world the drivel on that ever-respected List is exactly that. Why no one reads these books and feels something missing is beyond me. Maybe they do. Maybe they have a little hole in their heart they can’t explain. Don’t worry, gentle readers. Your day will come when my day will come.

Most importantly, it seems my lack of creativity is solely based on my dysfunctional relationship with my Muse. All artists supposedly have their own Muse. Andy Warhol had Edie Sedgwick. Colin Firth had Scarlett Johansson—at least in Peter Webber’s version of Girl with the Pearl Earring. Not that I want a socialite for a muse, per se. I’ve always thought it a little odd that people sometimes find their muses in beautiful people the masses can never hope to become like. If I were to choose a muse for myself maybe it would be someone like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. One would think he would be a perfect muse, what with his matchless beauty and all. But it’s that very matchless beauty that presents a problem: he is simply too beautiful for words. So apparently he’s a dreadful muse because how can anybody come close to truly praising those looks and that talent on paper? Or at least on a blank Word document.

Singing praises of people you don’t know (ie. celebrities) is weird anyway…

And apparently you can’t actually choose a muse for yourself. There’s either inspiration, or there isn’t. I wish I could at least catch a glimpse of my muse, however. It’s there. I know it’s there, elusive as it is. If it wasn’t stealthily hanging around I wouldn’t be sitting here with my blank Word document and Travis.

I wonder if I just try to wait it out the feeling might pass. Either the feeling might pass (sealing my fate to never achieve full self-actualization in the process) or maybe it will just build up so intensely inside me that one day I sit down and positively burst with life-changing insight.

I do mean to astonish you all. I just wish I knew how.