First of all. No, we are not friends. You were too wimpy to tell me the truth and too foolish to make up a lie I wouldnt actually SEE you make untrue. You are a boob. And goofy looking. And way too color coordinated. The best thing about you is your taste in music.
I can do that myself! Poopoo on you!
_____________________________________________
There, now that that is finished.
It has been weeks, weeks!, since I had a moment to write a word for myself. I have been developing a nice sized ulcer since late June, when an article got as big as a house and threatened to collapse on me for nearly 2 months! I mean seriously, my back has been worse, my neck sore, my sleep bad, my bowels irritated, my lumps bruisey and sore! Quite literally I thought I would have a major attack of some kind, but, luckily, managed only minor ones. I have been stress eating like a rabid teenage boy.
Sigh.
I can't really believe I have one word to say for the exhaustion. (Magnified by numerable other items happening in life, visits and laundry and boys and and electronics malfunctions and holes burnt in pockets and birthdays and interviews and a GAGILLION magazine obligations, holy shnikes, I have just not had a moment to even stop the spinning!)
I would actually love to just duck out a while, lay around and not see anyone at all. But, of course, life beckons and this very weekend, tomorrow even, I have an interview then a Dad visit then an Atmosphere show where the likely opener will be much alcohol consumption, and the closer may end up being kissing a rapper. Fun, right? Right! But when can I get off this ride?
I am supposed to have a date tonight. He is all right. He speaks with a sorta-cute Chicago accent and has crazy blue eyes. BUT he talks a little like a car salesman and wears a lot of gel in his hair. He DID drop the only-two-hours-after-Date-1-ask-for-Date-2 move. "Do I have to wait three days to tell you I want to see you again?" No, sir, you don't. But I have no time for the likes of you for at least one week, deal? I think he thought I was putting him off. But it is so true! Though, I might have been putting him off, too.
I can do that myself! Poopoo on you!
_____________________________________________
There, now that that is finished.
It has been weeks, weeks!, since I had a moment to write a word for myself. I have been developing a nice sized ulcer since late June, when an article got as big as a house and threatened to collapse on me for nearly 2 months! I mean seriously, my back has been worse, my neck sore, my sleep bad, my bowels irritated, my lumps bruisey and sore! Quite literally I thought I would have a major attack of some kind, but, luckily, managed only minor ones. I have been stress eating like a rabid teenage boy.
Sigh.
I can't really believe I have one word to say for the exhaustion. (Magnified by numerable other items happening in life, visits and laundry and boys and and electronics malfunctions and holes burnt in pockets and birthdays and interviews and a GAGILLION magazine obligations, holy shnikes, I have just not had a moment to even stop the spinning!)
I would actually love to just duck out a while, lay around and not see anyone at all. But, of course, life beckons and this very weekend, tomorrow even, I have an interview then a Dad visit then an Atmosphere show where the likely opener will be much alcohol consumption, and the closer may end up being kissing a rapper. Fun, right? Right! But when can I get off this ride?
I am supposed to have a date tonight. He is all right. He speaks with a sorta-cute Chicago accent and has crazy blue eyes. BUT he talks a little like a car salesman and wears a lot of gel in his hair. He DID drop the only-two-hours-after-Date-1-ask-for-Date-2 move. "Do I have to wait three days to tell you I want to see you again?" No, sir, you don't. But I have no time for the likes of you for at least one week, deal? I think he thought I was putting him off. But it is so true! Though, I might have been putting him off, too.
I would rather stay home and read. Clean my house, do my laundry, and read. I am just on the cusp of Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies and already I think this wee tome of short stories could prove a problem. On page 17, not even through the first of the fictions, I am sitting alone over my pile of salad at Whole Foods giving tears real consideration. Even the title makes me tingle, just a little, it's so distant and omnipotent and sad.
It is so simple and poignant. It feels like truth. I find myself having to look away from the page, like from a person who just told you they don't love you anymore. It feels a little like I am trying to look to something, but I am just as much trying not to see. To be fair, I do think some of my gutteral reaction to her easy catelogue of a strained relationship is that I am only two little pink pills from the end of the packet.
Maybe it isn't as beautiful and wrenching as I think it is. But there is some element of pain in reading it, similiar--hilariously--to what I felt about The Breakup. Like the honesty there is just too corrosive, so cutting and personal. Like she is writing my exact feelings, things I didn't know how to articulate myself, through complete (fictional!) strangers who have nothing in common with me at all.
Only, unlike the comedic film, this prose is so tempered and unassuming and boldy real that I can say nary a word against it. I don't want to own The Breakup. And I don't want to own Interpreter of Maladies. I want to consume it. I want to paste it to my walls.
I want to have written it.
There is a real possibility that reading this book is a very bad idea.
