zinzinish
McCain ‘08
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I’ve been reading through an old copy of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel that I found at the library rummage sale. At the risk of being That Girl who imposes all of her emotional volatility and issues with men on one poor little poem, I’m going to say that I really like Daddy.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
How could you not like Plath? Everything she writes is so unabashedly raw. And I think it’s pretty cool that our fathers left us at the same age – although not cool in the same way that Summer on the OC saying, “Is that the show with the know-it-all hipsters who talk about how fascinating regular people are? Ugh” about This American Life, is cool. I think it all goes back to the Old Testament, where we’re taught to love, indiscriminately, the one who punishes us, abuses us, and occasionally kills off all of our friends. I think most of us have this common pychic tic, of loving our abusers, just manifested in varying degrees of craziness.
So I think it goes without saying, now that I’ve officially submitted my absentee ballot for the upcoming election, that I’ll be casting my vote for that silver fox who goes by the name McCain. Because Obama just does not look like he has any idea how to administer a good old fashioned Catholic school spanking while maintaining a boozy air of mystery that keeps a girl pining for his love. And McCain has that benevolent, chubby, uncley look I’ve always liked in Mao. Rah rah rah!
Fear
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Lots of things scare me. Like pigeons with their beady red eyes, and flying, and really pretty girls and really pretty boys, and fluorescent lights. These are healthy fears; they help govern my life. Like I will probably never get bitten while feeding some dirty bird, and being afraid of flying makes the process of travelling less mundane, more like an adventure.
But I have this crippling fear of separation. When I had my first boyfriend in high school, we would talk on the phone every night, until we ran out of things to say, and then we would sit in silence, sometimes for hours. I would almost always fall asleep this way, incapable of saying goodbye. When it came time to break up with him, it took me months to say the words. It sounds silly and cute now, but I feel like I’m fighting to not be that weak little girl all the time. It’s still a little triumph for me to be the first person to get off the phone, although it always comes with a little discomfort and some guilt. I pretend not to get a little weepy at the end of a week when I finish dogsitting. And this summer, I don’t know what happened, but it’s like I spent the first part of it being so okay with everything, laughing and making jokes out of my problems, that I’ve spent the past few weeks crumbling under their weight. When I left the girls last weekend, it felt a little bit like the world was ending. It feels like that every time I drive away from people I really like. Maybe underneath always being slightly cynical, I’m really this incredibly romantic child, feeling like the whole world is hanging on the ledge of some cliff, and I have the power to save it – like the things I do make a real big difference. Maybe it’s because there’s just been a lot of leaving in my life, like being left by my mother, and then having to leave the country I grew up in, and all of my friends, and my family. And then leaving the little foundation I built here to go to boarding school, and then to college. Now I’m leaving for Paris and I’m completely unprepared. Funny how we’re all made up of all these contradictions, like there’s this almost uncontrollable urge within me to move, to change scenery, yet I’m also so completely paralyzed by the fear of leaving people I love, cus it feels like I’ve slowly and lovingly built this basis of support, just to chuck it out the window as it begins to feel the least bit sturdy.
And practical things scare me. Like looking for a new laptop, or emailing course listings to my advisor, or packing, or exchanging money. I know I’m completely capable of doing these things, but am really afraid of having to deparalyze myself, and eventually leaving, and becoming someone I don’t recognize. Being afraid comes easy, because my bed is so comfortable, and Nerds always lets me cry on him. But I think I’m going to try to grow up a little.
Home la
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Sometimes when I see pictures of Dalian, I feel like I can’t breathe. Needing to go back, to live, for a few years, or forever, is maybe the one thing I’m sure of.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickkozak/2475003439/
Cute Boys Make Mama Nervous
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I have no desire to post lately as a result of the fact that I will never ever aspire to be even a fraction as cool as she is:
http://cuteboysmakemenervous.blogspot.com/
cute boy
All I really want to do is sit and hit refresh for hours into the night, gazing furiously into my computer screen, while my vision plummets to hell. The fact that I’ve temporarily lost my brain and cannot spot the “insert link” button within a 12 inch screen doesn’t much help my blogging confidence either.
I’ve been having nightmares lately, and I tend to blame everything that’s wrong with my life either on lack of food or lack of sleep, so there’s another excuse for the lack of posts. These nightmares consist of ex-boyfriends, which is unfortunate enough. But instead of lasting the standard minute, these drag for hours, with twisting plots involving disco balls and coming out stories. Good thing I good riddance all of my ex’s so I have no way to, how did she put it, “resolve the deep seated, disturbing issues causing these dreams.” Yes, I have an aunt who’s a Buddhist psychic. I won’t write ‘thinks she’s a psychic’ because I like her too much, and I’d personally like to believe she does have some sort of ESP, and maybe if I stare at the Buddha statue living in our guest room long enough and learn to love the smell of incense, this could become a career path in my non-committal, directionless life. I think she might be right about the issues thing, although God knows I don’t have the cojones to email/phone ambush some guy whose face is still pasted onto a popsicle stick voodoo doll smeared with blood/red marker. Puh.
Worse than the ex attack are the bunnies (more like one particular giant, yellow, furry bunny head attached to the body of a business-suited man). It was a few nights ago, talking on the phone with Paul, and I’d closed my eyes to doze off when the image of this ungodly creature came creeping around the walls of a cubicle. Aunty didn’t tell me this, but I’m pretty sure bunnyman is a product of my loathing for my corporate-bullshit-overly-air-conditioned internship and those 13 times I watched Donnie Darko when I was a sophomore in high school because I thought it was sooo sooooooo deep. The sad part is that the only reason I keep thinking about bunnyman is because I keep reminding myself not to think about it. And the more I think about it, the more I’m afraid I might legitimately go crazy. Okay, I mean, I like the crazies. They generally seem to be a lot more passionate about life than your average soccer mom working her way through 20 years of polite PTA meetings and a sexless marriage. But if I’m crossing over, that is so NOT the imaginary friend I’m bringing. Can’t I at least delude myself into thinking I’m Elizabeth Taylor, circa 1964, so I can drape myself in crystal droplets I’ve torn from the chandelier in the vestibule, and go around cooing alluringly and burning men with my impossibly long cigarettes? I would SO get my ass kicked if I brought bunnyman to the crazies playground! Boy has got to go.
Oh and I can’t go to Paris. My laptop is broken and I haven’t packed at all and even if I did I wouldn’t be able to bring half the clothes I needed and I can’t afford to buy new ones and I REALLY REALLY like my friends and I heard that sometimes French men make orgasm noises when you walk by them on the street(this one really isn’t much of a problem considering my voodoo skills). So I’m officially freaking out.
EVERYBODY DIES ALONE waaaaaaaaah *cue the Who
Once
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Once, when she was fifteen or sixteen, a boy had told her that she was the most beautiful girl in the world. She had pinched her chubby cheeks then and smiled politely. She thinks about that moment now, in line at the grocery store, her sweat soaked t-shirt from her bike ride still clinging to her in several places, making her uncomfortable in the too cold air. The man in front of her looks out of place. He’s carrying a toddler on one arm and a Gucci wallet in the other as the scanner beeps its approval. She wonders to herself whether that toddler will someday be one of those grownups who proudly proclaims, “My friends are sooo important to me. They’re my family.” It seems like a common phenomenon nowadays. She takes part in it. But it’s hard to imagine those roots already being planted in a child so small. The toddler fusses and the man fails to notice. Instead, he continues making jokes, trying to tease the cashier girl into laughter.
Yea, he’s one of those, she thinks to herself. She has friends like him, who, even though they’re handsome, rich, married and just all-around privileged, never lose the desire to make the waitress or the maid giggle. She calls it the ‘George Clooney syndrome’: lethal if executed with grace and nonchalance; pathetic if even a little flawed. He cracks a joke about a nun and a cat. She doesn’t see the relevance, as it’s currently a bag of cabbage getting the scan treatment. She glances down and sees that his Le Tigre polo is tucked into a pair of pale khakis with a Dockers label attached. She cannot suppress a snicker. He turns to her, surprised and pleased that she is laughing at his joke, and flashes his million dollar, million teeth smile. She smiles back.
