Let's Put a Smile on that Vagina! (Or: Johnapuff, Why So Serious?)

Tyler is here reading over my shoulder. I wish he would walk in another direction. There we go. Good job, Ty.


So, I'm sitting in Moe Joe's (big surprise) blogging (but you now that). We went to the Save the Astro rally, which I'm all for since I miss being able to see movies without doing something illegal or spending a ton of money. But the thing was a big disappointment. I got funnel cake, which momentarily gratified me, but now I just feel fat. And I want to talk to Cece, but Moe Joe's is jam-packed with BITCHES. And I'm not just saying that they're bitches because they're here breathing Cece's air, which would be bad enough, but they are damn obnoxious. There was this one bastard kid who sat down where Khoa was sitting a moment before, declaring, "We're kids. We sit!" The self-same kid took one look at me and shouted to the girl sitting next to him, "I'm gonna step on her tittie!"


These kids are bastards.


I had a frustrating day that, when I come to think of it, consisted of not very much. I slept late, missing all of my classes, because I woke up with a pain that felt distinctly like a raptor claw reaching through my vagina and pulling out my innards. I was finally getting my period! For the first time, I was very happy to be in this state, since it was almost a half month late. I had been thinking that maybe I had gotten pregnant by some of Tyler's Miracle Semen seeping through four plus layers of clothing when he came in his pants (secretly) as I sat on his lap. Or something. Despite my joy to find that blood was oozing from my vagina, I decided it might be better to be unconscious during the more unpleasant parts of the affair. So I took my special period medicine and went back to bed.


I woke up around noon, when Lan Chi got back from all of her classes, and we had a nice conversation about boxes, books, and the many annoying features of Puff the Magic Gay Dinosaur. Like crawling into bed with Lan Chi squealing, "Swweeeping???" and pretty much ruining any chances she had of sleeping by doing so. And bragging to her every time she accomplishes something. And following her. Into the bathroom. And offering to help her pee, asking if everything is alright and asking if she needs any Tylenol to relieve the pain. Yes.


Craig and I decided to go to Hendrix and eat Burger King, like the pair of fattys that we are. We noticed that Johnathon was walking around with his Executive Folder of Doom, and we wondered why he always seems to be clinging to it these days. Freud would actually have some pretty good answers, in this case. Anyway, he stalked Lan Chi while she checked out all ten thousand villages at once, and wagged his sausage fingers at her merrily. Then we figured out that he was going to his Fancy Executive Meeting for CGSA, even though he is not executive. Craig and I debated for some time whether we should go and embarrass Johnathon by existing in his vicinity as our less professional than him selves. Unfortunately, by the time we decided that this would be a good idea indeed, we lost all of the executives and couldn't figure out where they had gotten to. So we went looking.

We went to the second floor, but found ourselves accosted by vampires (aka, the blood donation people) all of whom make really nasty faces whenever you don't want to give them your blood at that exact moment. So when one of them snarked at us, I shouted, "We can't! We're going to a CGSA meeting!" (gay people aren't allowed to give blood). And ran. After that, we decided to give up the cause.

We ran into Matt along the way, and my hand had sex with his hand, but we were too afraid to ask him if we could follow him to the exec meeting. Matt is one of those political kids who is really earnest and serious about everything. We aren't. We walked a little farther and saw Steven, who is our president. Actually, he's black. And president. He beat Barack to it. Anyway, he was listening to his ipod and therefore, oblivious, so he didn't see us for a while. When he did, he headed for Craig, looking eerily like an abominable snowman. Then he tripped. Scratch that.

So we followed Steven and complained lightly about Johnathon not liking us because we aren't as "executive" as he is.

"He's not executive," said Steven, snobbishness seeping from his pores.

Craig joked that I should be president, being a hot woman and all that. "It takes more to be a president than being a hot woman," cautioned Steven. Um, Steve? No duh.

Then I joked additionally, hoping that Steven would catch on that yes, this was a joke. Then again, being an executive isn't anything to joke about. I guess. But, being stupid and not realizing this, I said, "Well, I'll get myself a nice collection of pantsuits, and then I'll be qualified." An obvious allusion to Hilary Clinton, right, right?

"No, being president is more than just the wardrobe." No shit, Sherlock. I hate people who are condescending just because I can find it in my heart to joke about such mighty things as executive positions. Oh, Lord.

---------------

Now, I'm going to talk about group dynamics in very general terms so as not to confuse anyone.

Groups are, by definition, gatherings of people. Sometimes, groups form accidentally, such as when you walk into an elevator with people who you do not know, and then the elevator gets stuck, and you rot in there for five days until you die of starvation/boredom. You and the people with you in the elevator are a group.

Many times, however, groups meet together because they have something in common. Like being gay. Sometimes, they meet together for multiple reasons. Like being gay and pompous and horny. Groups like this must have a leader. Why? Because. Because they won't look like a very official group unless the gayest, most pompous, horniest one of them all becomes leader. The leader has many responsibilities. Responsibilities are things you have to do. Like organizing. If you aren't organized, you won't look very good like a file cabinet, which looks better than most other things. Sometimes groups are called organizations because of this.

A group should be streamlined. Which means that those people who know how to be organized should organize all the other people, and hush them up as much as possible. In order for a group to function well, group members should never tell others how they voted. Ever.

It becomes necessary, when the less organized group members become annoying, that all the Important People gather together in a room with a very long table. The long table is a must. Proper etiquette at the table includes: 1) not raising your hands because this is seen as childish 2) refraining from spinning around in the spinny chairs even though this is VERY TEMPTING 3) sitting up straight and folding your hands on the table, so you are in constant contact with the table and never forget how important you are and how lucky you are to be SITTING AT THIS GIANT ASS TABLE 4) stroking the egos of those who are speaking so that when you speak they will stroke your ego in turn.

Sometimes, when you discover that the organization is not as organized as its name suggests it should be, it becomes your divine duty to impose yourself on everyone and take over. You can do this in one of two ways 1) killing them 2) being a slut, fucking everyone head one person at a time. Studies have proven that this second method is more efficient, given that this first method results in no group being left after you are finished. Which is sometimes considered a drawback.

The art of sucking up is an art.

You must stroke many egos simultaneously with your dexterous little sausage fingers. You must speak with many fluff words that serve the purpose of changing the sentence in such a way as to give it the appearance that it is conveying a missive of greater importance than, in actuality, it is, in truth-- even if sometimes this results in the aforementioned sentences becoming a run-on string of redundancies. No one will notice, because they will be too impressed with your puffing abilities. PUFF!

And if your puff sentences need some substance, you can take ideas that your friends came up with during the course of your conversations, and put them in one of your Speeches. Because it is for the greater good, and everyone needs a good figurehead who fancies himself a dictator.

--------

I think that says it all.

Angrier than Usual,

Miss Mei

The Full Circle (aka, FAT... I'd rather be an Un-Full Circle)

I write to you today with cheese encrusted fingers, evidence of the fact that I am a total fatty (I don't even like cheese!) I am soo lucky that I have never found drugs tempting, because I have a horrible addictive personality. My drug of choice is just food. I really am a glutton. Sometimes I eat because I'm bored, or because I get kind of "aroused" just thinking about food. Like, I'm not hungry, but I think about a chocolate chip cookie, and then I'm freaking out until I get me some damn chocolate. I like the taste, the way it feels in my mouth, the chewing part, the swallowing part... yeah. I'm a fatty. Grosssss!

Today I ate dinner before I worked out. Bad mistake. Because after I finished my two hours of futile running/rowing/pedaling/pushing/pulling/lifting/crying/etc, I came back to my room only to discover that I was famished. "No," I told myself, "I will refrain from eating." Then I went into Tyler's room for a good make-out session to relieve my oral fixatedness. Then Tyler was all like, "Craig got two people we don't even know commenting on his blog!" and I was all, "Nuh-uh," and he was all, "Yuh-huh." Khoa was making all these stupid Asian faces the whole time, like he had never seen an angry fat lady. And I made this face back at him that was all, "Watch it, puny engineer, because I probably weigh more than you, and I will CLAW you until you beg for your mom and then I will CLAW YOUR MOM!! BIIIITCH!" Then I turned to Craig, and stuck out my tongue, which meant, "You may be a cooler writer than me, but I can still dazzle you with my maturity! What now, ho?" Then I grabbed Tyler's Doritos, and turned around to give the boys one last look, daring them to point out that the last thing I needed to do right now was stuff my face with Doritos to avoid contemplating the thoughts brought on by an inferiority complex. They didn't say anything. That's right, bitches.

On another note, I have been informed by Yahoo! (and then subsequently re-informed by friends who were also informed by Yahoo!) that some team of geeks has proven E=MC(squared). I don't really understand how they did this, when I still can't manage to prove to my boyfriend, through a series of really hot sexual favors, that I exist. But I get all horny when I think of a bunch of sweaty dudes (a good fraction of them Asians) talking each other through some marathon calculus. "Come on man, you're almost there! Just a little further... look it's oscillating... Come on... Come on!!! Yeah! Yeah! THAT'S IT!!! YOU GOT IT!!!" While the hot lady mathematicians give them lap dances (because women can't do math, obviously). Men need to stay sexually satisfied in order to solve complex equations. Why can't Craig's professor figure this out, and give him a hand job or two? I'm sure his grades would perk up, along with a few other things I could mention. Of course, when all the women tire out and die, then the men have the real fun, stroking each other under the table, while doing some rapid maneuvering with their TI-89 silver fancy editions. Hellz yeah. Now you see why I was excited to hear this news.

In other news... vagina. Sorry. I had to.

Okay.

So. My day. Got up around 11, and started reading The Princess Diaries, which Lan Chi gave me to read. I'm liking it a lot better than Twilight, another book that the Chinius gave to me so I could understand the phenomena that I didn't even notice until a couple of days ago when Carly started orgasming, "ummm, Twi!ligh!t.... ahhh! ohhh! that's ri!ght, Twilight, ba!by!!!" I don't get it. The book is just okay. It has a really slow start, which I wouldn't mind, except the characters never develop into anything more than two dimensional figures, except for the narrator, Bella, who is decently drawn, if only because she is talking to us for 400 pages. There's no hot sex, not even hot kissing, really, and none of the stuff about vampires is that interesting. The only villain shows up in the last 6th of the book, and he just seems like an afterthought. He's supposed to be really badass, but he doesn't seem too impressive, seeing as he's beaten in about 2 seconds. It wasn't horrible... I just don't understand the enthusiasm.

But, yeah, The Princess Diaries is great. I like the movie, but it's definitely as Disney-ficatation of the book, which has much more attitude. I'd like to write my blog entries like Mia's diary... she's very funny and reminds me of Craig, which is probably why his readership is expanding at an alarming rate and mine isn't. Oh. Well.

I rolled around with Tyler for a little while, did homework, and then went to go get lunch at Hendrix. It's lucky I did, because we discovered that they were having the Ten Thousand Villages sale today. Basically, this store from Greenville, which sells all these really neat things crafted by natives of different poor countries, and sells them to people here, making sure that the artisans who made everything get fairly paid, came to Clemson and sold stuff here. You'd think that everything would be really expensive then, but most of the stuff wasn't that bad. And all of it was really nice, handmade, and unique.

(the following is a descriptive passage in which the subject is shopping, and may be found objectionable by some readers. if you suffer from dizzy spells, pregnancy, or a weak constitution, you should probably skip this ride. and tell james madison to father you a stronger constitution. jeeze)

So I decided to get my Christmas shopping done early. I got my mom one of those bowls with that blue on white pattern (there's some name for it, which I can't remember) because she collects things with that pattern. Plus it matches our kitchen. I got my two cousins both jewelry boxes... one of them is carved out of some kind of gem and has a flower on the top, and the other one is carved out of wood from a cinnamon tree (the inside smells so good!)-- it still has the bark on the outside, and the Chinese symbol for "luck" is carved into the cover. They're both so cute and pretty! I got my Grandma a necklace made of amber colored gems, and also a tiny jade box to keep it in. I got my aunt a really cool journal, withe a painting of the rooster in the middle of the cover, and the rest of it woven out of strips of old newspaper. And, after I heard Lan Chi talking about how much she likes boxes, I bought her one. It's round and has really intricate carvings of flowers on the cover and also around the outside. I got one kind of like that for myself, except it's a little bigger, and shaped like a treasure chest. I love it so much! I felt kind of guilty buying something for myself when I was doing Christmas shopping, but I had to. I completely fell in love with this box-- it looks all old and important, and it makes me feel like anything I put in there will become precious and meaningful, like historical artifacts. I'm going to make it my memory box, I am going to cuddle with it, get splinters, and love it anyway! Woo!

(okay, you can look now)

This all took a long time. I was there with Tyler, who got himself a really cool journal with a cover made out of leaves. Then I went back to the dorm and realized that I wanted to get a box for my grandma's necklace. Conveniently, Johnathon decided that he wanted to go and shop for his family, so I followed him. On the way, he bitched about Khoa bitching, and I thought to myself, "We are all bitches. So why all the bitching about bitchiness? It's bitchy." Everyone's always snarking at each other. Myself included. Why can't we just admit that we love it?

By the time I finished shopping and gave Lan Chi her present, which I was very happy to find she really liked, it was time to eat again. So Lan Chi, Tyler and I went to go dine together. Lan Chi and I ate at Firehouse, and Tyler brought his Moe's in with us. Lan Chi actually ended up snagging a free dinner for Khoa, by being a vegetarian. She ordered a tuna sandwich, and somehow the sandwich lady misheard "tuna" for "turkey." So Lan Chi got a turkey sandwich. Then she informed them, and got her tuna. She gave the turkey to Khoa, who was happy in a way only Khoa could be. He immediately started making plans on how to allocate this unexpected windfall, and eventually decided to bury for the winter (aka put it in his Secret! Backup! Refrigerator! Of! Nuclear! Doom!). I was briefly thankful for Lan Chi's inexplicable need to massacre vegetables/fish inhumanely. You show that lettuce, Chichi Baby! (Tuna killer)

Which brings us full circle. Almost. After dinner, we went to Moe Joe's and I encountered Cece, whose last day is on Sunday (yes, that's her last day. After that, she's being made a sacrifice to the sorostitute Goddess of Boobage, Dolly Parton. Apparently, Dolly heard that Cece was bragging that her boobs were better than hers. And Dolly is a very jealous and tempestuous woman. So, after writing some really nasty things about Cece's boobs on Juicy Campus, she demanded that the sorostitutes offer the offender as a sacrifice. The execution is on Sunday). I can't even start to talk about how upset this makes me. But I will. On Sunday. When Craig, Lan Chi, Tyler, Johnathon, and I will sit in Moe Joe's and write about all of the good times we've had with Miss Cecilia, and all the inner turmoil that's getting kicked up by her leaving us. And so on.

But, for today, I will just tell you what happened. Which wasn't much.

Cece was training The Bitch, aka Courtey (if this is what we have to look forward to in terms of future baristas after Cece, Mark and Stephanie are gone, Moe Joe's is headed down a bad road. The girl can't tell her head from her ass--then again, neither can I-- or resist overflowing every latte with foam because she finds the foam pretty. And she's anorexic looking and whiny. And doesn't know how to swipe a credit card. And somehow manages to make lattes watery (???) Yeah). Luckily, Bitch didn't have much to say. I ordered a hot cider with a shot of pumpkin pie, and fumbled in my Jack Bauer bag for the present that I was giving Cece, a little two dollar magnet that has a tiny table covered in a blue-and-white checkered tablecloth, a tiny pair of glasses on a tiny newspaper, and a tiny cup of coffee. Behind the table, a plaque reads... um... some cute quote about coffee and its position as The Ultimate Good in the World, which I have forgotten. I felt so stupid. This is, again, like me with my teachers. Ugh.

If Cece didn't like it, she was gracious enough to put on a fairly convincing show to the contrary. She pouted, making a little doggy/kissy face, and baby noises. "Soooo (she pronounced this sue) cuute!!! Thanks!" Then she asked us if we were going to stay. Much as I hated to, I had to say, no, I was going to Fike because I was fat. "You're okay," she said.

"What do you know?" I thought, "I'm a lump of lard that was pooped out of a pig that was raised on a steady diet of raw sewage. I look like rabbit that was shot by and hunter, and then overstuffed with arsenic and mayonnaise, and mounted on the wall next to a belligerent-looking moose, who would rather be next to the duck than me." But I love Cece, even though she is a liar.

Now I've come full circle. Go. Me. Circle!

Yeah, okay, so I haven't kept my promise and made all my posts about writing. But at least I've been writing. And I'll start feeling like working on my book soon enough. I don't think I need to force it right now, as long as I'm staying in practice and writing something everyday.

I'll leave you with some poetry, so I can keep up the pretense that this blog is about literary shit. And I'll tie it into the post, too! Sexy mathematics.

"The Asymptote Poem"

Dawn stretches across the eastern rim of the sky
as I lie in my bed
contemplating Calculus, asymptotes, and you.
Your smile is like a parabola
divided by an rational number.
Oh, but my love for you is most irrational,
my emotions oscillating wildly.
How I long to lie tangent to your curves,
but, alas! that can never be!
For there is an asymptote betwix your heart and mine
I am infinitely reaching,
but I will never touch you.

(Yes, it's meant to be funny. And yes, you're right, this could be about me and Cece. Though I'm holding out hopes for a hug before she's carted off to the killing fields. Am I right, am I right?)

Fat and Oozing and Utterly Yours,
Mei of Mei

Scratch That! Scatterbrained Musings! Bitch Parents! And Others!

Okay, I started working on the description of my damn novel, and I was like, "Um, no."

Hey, check this out: http://haplochant.livejournal.com/237559.html. The misogynist dude that she's talking about is The Owner of our Moe Joe's. I always knew he was a whore-- there had to be an explanation as to why every single barista we've encountered here is unspeakably beautiful. Bastard. Well, it's good for me, I guess. I love pretty women.

There was just this creepy dude standing outside staring at us. In my head I was like, "Go away, Creepo! Watcha doin'?" And he did. Haha. I have powers.

We decided that we're not going to go to Fike. I guess I can't bear to part with my boobs.

So, I wanted to start a blog for all of the people from our little group to post on together, telling tales of our lubed-up journeys. Great idea, right, right? Well, I was trying to get it together, but it was just too damn frustrating. I'm not in a very patient mood today. First, I spent a good 45 minutes trying to come up with a really cool title for this orgy, and I came up with "vagabond cove," which I thought was pretty awesome. When I told Craig about it I said humbly, "But you guys can change it if you don't like it."

"Good," said Craig. "We're not vagabonds."

I wept/moaned.

So then I was trying to format the shit, and I was having a very difficult time with it, given that I found that I had lost all of my good photos when my computer took ill, and also because I suck at formatting in general. After about an hour of that, I started spazzing out. I was twitching like Tyler when he's threatened with a violent butt-fucking. Carly kept on coming over and getting me to try her coffee shit, most of which was good except for this one which tasted like dentist toothpaste. It was a raspberry, white chocolate, mint latte... ew, right? But Carly loves sweet stuff. Of course. It tasted like her personality. Wait... that sounds bad. I like her personality. It just tastes bad.

Anyway, I told her that I didn't like it. She was all surprised, and then she left.

"Where's she going?" asked Craig.

Mark shrugged. Mark seemed dejected ever since the news came that the only reason he got hired was because he was a hot girl. I totally get that.

"Probably to get a shotgun," Craig mused.

"Oh," I said. "I figured she was going to commit suicide... drown herself in coffee or something."

"Hahahaha," commented Mark. He seemed to like that idea.

Then Carly stormed back in. "He's not even there!!!" she shrieked. Apparently she wanted to get some dude who worked at another store to stroke her ego, since I refused to gratify her desires. I don't feel bad. Let me tell you why (besides the fact that she wasn't even slightly dejected from my rejection... she made her concoction the winter special, designing a little sign that reads, "'Tis the season for Razzmint" and features an illustration of a confused-looking mullet man):

I have discovered The Perfect Latte. Pumkin Pie, White Chocolate, and Cinnamon, with whipped cream and cinnamon on top. Mmmmm. Yes. As I was ordering it today, Carly was all, "Wow! That sounds good!" And I was all, "Yeah, you think I don't know, bitch?" Then, later, when she and the new girl, Courtney, were having an orgy and creating new combos, they decided to hand me a latte.

"Thanks!" said I, beaming.

"You!re!! Wel!!co!me!!!!!" said Carly. Excited.

"What's in it?" I asked, as I sucked the suck-hole.

"White chocolate, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon!!!" exclaimed Carly.

"Wait... that's what I ordered earlier."

"Y!eah. We! did!t like i!!t," she smiled.

Biiitch. Haha.

So, what's been happening?

Well, Tyler's parents came a-callin'. That was a basket of kittens. Story time.

So, Johnathon and I were walking around campus, trading gossip about how dumb Tyler's parents are, and how much we dreaded their impending visit. Then, as we were journeying to Lee, to head off Tyler as he got out of his architecture class, who should we see but Tyler's parents? Hahaheeheehahaho. They were sitting at a table outside of the Fernow Street Cafe. Upon spotting Johnathon and me, they beckoned us over and began engaging us in a very awkward/annoying conversation.

Let me explain. They recently weaseled it out of Tyler that pretty much all of his male friends are gay. Tyler's mom is one of those fairly enthusiastic Catholics who are into the whole religion thing not because they are spiritual or seek a deep connection to God, but because it is the respectable thing to do, and because they don't want to go to hell. Tyler's dad is a fairly simple (for simple, read shallow) person who likes to make jokes at the expense of others and chuckle to himself and imagine that other people are laughing along. They both think that being normal is a virtue. They read that article in National Geographic about how archaeologists had discovered that there was, in fact, and 11th commandment that was edited out of all bibles and Torahs by homosexual/harry potter enthusiast terrorists, which read: "Thou shall adhere strictly to the cultural norm, with the exception of those cultural norms which dictate that thou should be a whore of any kind (unless thou dost use thy whorish ways to spread the word of god to infidels, and moan biblical verses during thy orgasms). If more than 10.143% of the people who thou dost encounter in thy lifetime think that thou art weird, thou shalt perish in eternal flame and be butt-fucked by demons with penises of flame. For being eternally gay is the worst fate one can suffer. Mwahaha!"

Yess. So I doubt they were really happy about the whole "All my friends are gay." In fact, when they found out that he was a member of the Gay-Strait Alliance, they compelled him to quit. "Think of your reputation," they said. As if it should be a blight on his reputation that he doesn't think that members of the GLBT community should be treated like second-class citizens. Tyler, showing a degree of spirit and defiance that makes my clitoris swell with love, refused. Go Tyler!

So, yes. The conversation was awkward.

They asked about how school was going, bemoaned the fact that we both had slightly better grades than Tyler, bitched about how much Tyler's mandatory semester abroad was going to cost, mused that maybe Tyler should spend his semester abroad in Charleston (I'm not even going to start about the many ways in which that statement is retarded), and sent passive-aggressive messages that they did not approve of our senses of humor.

I was forced to inform them that Tyler was not going to be able to cuddle in bed with them that night, because Tyler and I were going to a dance together. This got their attention, and they asked many paranoid questions. They got it out of us that the dance was a masquerade run by CGSA, and that Tyler was going to be wearing a pair of wings with his costume. This alarmed them greatly. They exchanged, "our son has fallen in with a bad lot, and is turning gay before our eyes" glances. Later on, they begged Johnathon to convince Tyler that wearing wings was a bad idea. Haha.

After Tyler showed up, we went back to the dorm, and they saw Tyler's Piss Yellow Sheet.

The Piss Yellow Sheet was this survey that our RA gave us, asking questions like, "What is your favorite color/ice cream flavor/soda/etc." It was printed on paper that was this obnoxious shade of yellow. Hence the name. We all had to write down our answers and post the sheets outside our doors, so all of our adoring fans, who clustered on our threshold waiting for News, had some juicy little tidbits about this sensitive information. Of course, everyone in our group wrote really rude answers. For example, my favorite color is seizure, my favorite sport masturbation, my favorite holiday World Aids Day. You get the idea.

Tyler, being Tyler, had written very boring answers. He wanted to "Bean Architect" when he graduated (we figured that he meant "be an architect," but since know space was included, it was hard to tell.) He liked chocolate. He didn't have a favorite sport. In fact, he had left an astounding number of spaces blank. Like the good girlfriend I am, I filled these in with answers much like my own when he wasn't looking. Tyler's parents weren't amused, though. Luckily, Tyler had the presence of mind to tell them that someone he didn't know must have done it without him noticing, as a joke. Otherwise, they probably would have shipped him off to live with the Amish, as a lesson. And killed me in the name of The Lord (Jesus, not Voldermort).

The next day, I went to a football game on their invitation, and received nasty stares when I wrote in my journal instead of watching the game. What can I say? Football sucks poop-caked ass.

Later, we embarked on a journey to Easley, which reminds me of a town that was run over by disease around the time they invented dirty factories, became a ghost town, and was recently reclaimed by a tribe of hicks who lost their homes when the trailer park burnt down due to the fact that a gay man dropped a match on their stores of alcohol. Yess. Craig and Khoa came with, eager to get away from Clemson and view the spectacle that is Tyler's parents. We were going so we could eat at some mysterious venue, which Janie called, "The Railroad Restaurant." Because it's near a railroad. Yeah. It turns out that it was a fuckin pizza place. I guess they didn't realize that there were 20 pizza places in Clemson, and that we probably weren't eager for MORE PIZZA. But, whatever, that wasn't really a big problem... it's just something I would have thought about if I had been in their position.

So, it was the kind of place where you ordered at the counter and then were served the food at your table. Just as we came in this huge party of people came in and got in line. Tyler's parents decided to stand by our table and wait for Tyler's uncle/spoiled kids to show up (the guy offered his six-year-old son a five dollar bill if he went over to shake my hand. Nice family). They also elected to not look at menus while they stood around. Craig and I decided that it was probably a good idea to get on line, because we were hungry and didn't want to wait even longer while other people got on at the end of the line. Tyler's dad watched us save their spot in line, and made no move to figure out what everyone else wanted to order. As we drew closer to the front of the line, I finally decided that they would have to be forced from their stupor. So Craig got them a menu and bid them to take a look at it. Then, as I was just about to reach the counter, they bid me to come back to the end of the line. They needed time to figure out what they wanted. You think?

Some snippets of conversation during our dinner:

Mark (Tyler's dad): Hey, there, Craigory. You goin' to the fountain area any time soon?

Craig: Whaa?

Mark: I noticed that you're running a little low on your iced tea there, Craigory.

Craig: Um, yeah.

Mark: (shaking his empty glass at Craig) I'll take diet Coke. Thanks, Meester Craigles. Har, har.

***

Melissa: I think that singing is fantanstic, and is to be encouraged in any situation.

Mark: (as if he thought he was being deeply challenging) Then sing. Heehee.

Melissa: (gesturing to her 1/4th eaten pizza, thinking that no one had figured out that she was quite hungry) I'm eating.

Mark: Ho, ho. Just do it. Sing.

Melissa: I'm eating. I'll do it in a couple of minutes.

Mark: Hee, hee. Won't do it here, will ya?

Melissa: (sings)

All Present Adults: (stare evilly)

***

Melissa: I like Charlotte because it's clean.

Khoa: Singapore is the cleanest city in the world. You should live there.

Melissa: I'm not that clean.

Khoa: Yeah, that's probably a bad idea. They caned this kid for graffiti-ing a wall.

Melissa: (sarcastically) Sounds like a great society.

Janie: It's a good deterrent.

Melissa: (again, sarcastically) That's the best way to keep kids in line, of course. Government sanctioned beatings! That's the perfect solution! Don't know why that went out of style here.

(silence all around)

***

Yeah. Like I said. Bucket. Of. Kittens.

Well, that's enough rants. One of these days I'll get back on topic. Until then, let's raise a glass to all those bitch parents out there-- without you, we would have never felt injustice and stupidity so keenly, and would never have been motivated to strive to avoid being like you at all costs. Thank you for all you've done.

I leave you with this:

BROS IN HOS.

Think about it.

All my people on the floor/ All my people wantin' more--

Let me see you dance,

Mei-Mei, Duchess of Dutchaka

PS: Hey, Britney-- you say you want to lose control? Come over here, I got somethin' to show ya. (Humps cane.) See, this is what canes should be used for: masturbation, not child beatings. (If you didn't understand anything I just said, watch this video and be enlightened)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1UH1OO8DC4

Happy orgasms, kittens.

A Call to Arms and a Farewell to Boobs

I've been in Moe Joe's for over an hour, now. By now, I should have a steamy, creamy, delicious little post for you people to slurp up de-lightedly.

Unfortunately, no.

Why?

Because I'm feeling awfully lonely over here. I feel like no one is reading, besides my friends. And they're bored with me, because Craig and Lan Chi both have better blogs than me. Even my boobs have lost their charm. (Oh, yeah, and I've been feeling up all over my boobs lately, Cece style. Because I've started exercising at Fike, doing ABDOMINAL CRUNCHES, running on the ELLIPTICAL MACHINE, riding the STATIONARY BICYCLE, and rowing on the ROWING MACHINE. And since my boobs are just sacks of fat that appeared with all the other sacs of fat that took residence on my body when I gained the freshman 15,000, they will probably disappear if I ever manage to lose all this damn pudding clinging to me. So I'm bidding them farewell. Goodbye, boobs!) But, yeah. None of my posts have any comments. Tear, tear.

So, instead of writing my fancy little post, I've been searching through the blogs of like-minded people, trying to find someone to suck up to, and hopefully win over as a reader. Because I would really, really like to have readers. As badly as a woman wants an orgasm after 45 years of one minute daily increments of sex, no masturbation. Yeah. That bad.

So, if you have read this post, can you please leave a comment (that includes you, Craig, Lan Chi, Tyler, and Johnathon)? Every ego needs a little stroke every once in while. Dammit. If you don't have time, just send me a "Yo." Otherwise, I'd like to hear about you. WHO are you, WHY do you eat chocolate emo vampires, HOW are you doing? Chocobo? Sex? Fermentation? Yes.

Okay, okay. After this, I'm going to write a real post. I just really wanted to whine.

I think I'm going to fulfill my promise and post the plot of House of Orange.

Think of me fondly when we say goodbye,
The Mei of Supreme Coffee

Simplicity/ Little Poet, Dancing Gypsy

I don't know what kind of mood I'm in today. I've been feeling more in the mood for quiet contemplation, spending my days with a computer or notebook on my lap, writing about my life. I still want to work on An Ocean Between, but I don't feel that same urgency that I did earlier this month. All I really want to do is pass my days quietly, letting things fall together as they may.

I've been thinking a lot about all the things I wish I could be, and all the things that I've lost. I'm missing my high school friends, and I keep wishing that I had kept a blog then, so I could have some scrap of who I was to look back on.

I miss simplicity, and a sense of immediacy. Although I like having my whole "rich inner life" thing, I wish I could be more connected to the physical world. I read some posts in this blog http://www.theglassdoorknob.blogspot.com/ and I it had everything I feel I have been missing. It reminded me that being poetic isn't all about complexity and verbosity. Poetry is intensity.

I'm not intense!! (waa!)

The author reminded me of this girl, Astrid, who I was friends with at the beginning of high school. I think I was jealous of her, even though I didn't realize it then. She was so beautiful, like one of those voluptuous priestess Final Fantasy characters, and everything around her seemed sacred-- the pen she balanced between her fingers, the green apple she bit pensively, the jack-o-lantern she grasped in both hands. She had white skin, wide, expressive eyes, a soft face, gold hair, petulant lips, and a permanently contented expression, like a Buddhist monk. Unlike me, she always spoke quietly. She never seemed very hurried. We got along very well, even though she didn't share my sharper side-- the part of me that makes politically incorrect jokes, says stupid things for the hell of it, and writes blog posts with the title "Whore Shit Fuck! Revolution!!!"-- and she was sensitive to the extreme, saving spiders from eminent slaughter, adopting neglected textbooks, and pouting when Fallon made jokes about aborted babies. Fallon never liked her; she thought that Astrid was a fake bitch, and resented her theatrics over the lives of insects.

As for me, Astrid's sensitivity made me uncomfortable, but I didn't blame her for it. I never really believed that she was "fake" as so many people accused her of being-- I thought she always seemed like a sincere person to me. I enjoyed the quiet days we spent together. I visited her house a couple of times, and we went trick-or-treating together one year. We both appreciated the colors of autumn, the beauty of innocence, the joy of discount books, thrift stores, and sexy photographs. She told me that she wanted to own an art studio, and I told her I wanted to be an author. When I look back on this now, I cringe. Her writing was unquestionably better than mine, and she must have known it-- mine, at the time, was hopelessly juvenile. Yes. Even worse than now. She had one of those pensive and tranquil natures that allowed her to really connect with everything beautiful in the world. I always thought she was one of the wisest people I ever met.

We started drifting apart when we were sophomores, around this time of year. Right before the election, we had a pseudo-argument about George Bush and John Kerry, which ended when I said something somewhat tactless. It really wasn't that bad, but it hurt her. I guess I should tell you what happened-- we had had a mock vote, and Astrid had changed her vote at the last minute from Bush to Kerry (when I look back, I find it remarkable that she ever considered voting for Bush- she of the "No Blood for Oil" t-shirts), but Bush still ended up winning. Afterwards, I came up to her and asked her why she changed her mind, and she said that Bush reminded her too much of her father. Then would have been the time to say something nice, but, being both an Idiot and a Republican, I said, "Well, at least your vote didn't matter in the end." Or something like that. Ok, maybe it was that bad. I was referring to the fact that I was glad that Bush still won our election, but... yeah. It was a dumb thing to say.

Astrid, being divinely sensitive... I don't know if she ever really forgave me for that. I don't remember if I tried to apologize. I was embarrassed that I had said something so tactless, and I guess I hoped that if I didn't think about it again, the problem would eventually go away.

I wonder if she still remembers. I'm friends with her on facebook, and she still seems like the same old Astrid. Effortlessly wise, a better writer than I will ever be, beautiful, and spirited. I wish I weren't so afraid of trying to strike up old friendships. But what I'm really afraid of is to find out what she remembers me as. I've changed a lot since early high school, but how could she know that? She ended up leaving for another school at the beginning of junior year, and I only saw her once since then. I was standing on line, waiting to take the SATs, which was a right bag of fun, when I saw her standing a little ways ahead in line, her hair short, bleach blonde, and streaked with light blue. She used to have this really long, beautiful hair that was the color of honey, before she decided to cut and dye it. I thought she looked fantastic either way, but she used to say that she missed her long hair. Anyway, I said hi, she said, hi, we might have exchanged a few "how are you"s, but, altogether, it was a very awkward meeting.

Later that week, I laughed off the encounter with friends and Fallon, who is always a very generous person except when it comes to Astrid, used the opportunity to remark that she always knew that Astrid was a bitch. I might have even agreed-- I think I was bitter that she didn't remember me more warmly. But, now that I've left all the old conflicts of high school behind me, I realize that I was angry at myself-- I take the full blame for the fact that our friendship fell apart. I sometimes find myself thinking of how wonderful it would be if we were still friends, and curse the fact that I'm too cowardly to try talking to her. I know why, too. She's a reminder of everything I hate in myself. I'm rash, crude, judgmental, and even ignorant. Those qualities might have been more pronounced in my younger self, but they are still there. Astrid is a constant reminder of the costs of my flaws.

I'll leave you with this piece of poetry I wrote with Astrid in mind, over the summer. I envisioned her as the title character, and I also tried to write the way she would. I didn't do her justice in either sense, but here it is:

Little Poet, Dancing Gypsy

Who were you last year, Faina, and
did you sleep beneath
willows? sky? me?
Do you remember the carnival--
the fires in the tents and the smoky
skin I kissed, the pristine arches
of feet, and the dancing, swirling
carousel when I led you into
me? And the cherry-bursts
of fireworks; the lemonade lanterns
of fireflies that perched like stars
in the branching midnight of your hair?

I’ve long forgotten
your spider-thin hands, spinning
my fortune round in your
crystal ball, the musk of your
voice as you sang my future,
etching your lines in my opening
palms, and your palms--
how they were dipping bowls
brimming with stars, swirling
cards that sifted through folding
fingers tracing the life told
in the spaces between

galaxies
of freckles strung on my neck
and the silences
sundering my words.

And I’ve lost the red string
you laced around my
finger, and the poems
you branded into parchment;
the way they
tasted--
the blazing, briny ink
of your tears.

What was my name last year,
little poet, dancing gypsy?
It seems to have fallen
somewhere through the cracks in my palms.
Did it sing like fireworks
blooming on your tongue?
Or did it sting like a knife
and the pomegranate juices of your own
blood?
Oh, but I wish you would speak it,
so I could
remember.

In Which I Take a Break from Literary Genius to Bring You News of the Outside

Blogger Buzz: Concerning the Historie and Nature of Blogs of Note

How intensely interesting... Here I was thinking that Google, with all their fancy tech-knowledge-y-ness would decide what their "blogs of note" were by seeing which blogs were getting the most traffic and positive comments. But. No. They just skim around and arbitrarily look for ten blogs out of thousands that strike them as interesting. Real scientific.

Has anyone else noticed that it's impossible to search for other blogs by topic? Well, either it's impossible to do it, or it's damn near it. So much for easy interface. Let us rally together, and fight the bitches! Bloody the bitches! Revolution!!!

Yeah.

So, I've decided to post my favorite peace of prose to date. That oughta cheer you up (I know you're distraught)

“A Good Book”

There is nothing so decadent and voluptuous as a book sitting fat and unopened on the shelf, like the most sensual secret whispered haughtily between lovers—a novel that looks so plump and inviting, beckoning like a pretty young prostitute, “Read me, deeply and knowingly, peruse my secrets and my darkest corners, touch the cobwebs of my soul, read me, oh, oh, read me!” A title that flirts with your senses. The Joy Luck Club, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Bluest Eye, Anna Karenina, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Lolita—teasing, provoking, cunning, kissing titles, like geishas, coy and lovely. Like a veiled bride, like the first bud of spring.

Like a photograph of lovers in trench coats meeting in the St. Petersburg snow, exchanging letters with wax seals, eyes locking—blue eyes, love-making eyes—and red, red lips. The cathedrals that soar over their heads are in black and white, blurred in a swirling background. Silhouetted against the grey towers, her hair is brown, curled. And she is classically beautiful and so his he, with his strong chin, daring eyes, and sensuous lips. The snow is so white, and it’s like the most hauntingly beautiful Christmas you ever dreamed (the year when the lights made glowing gum-drop patterns in the fiery snow, when your breath puffed in cotton candy clouds, and your mother bought you the most beautiful dark green coat, with the big, fat buttons and the narrowed waist, the one that made you look so grown up. And you were only 6 and you were in love with life; with the lonely sounds of the railroad tracks mingled with the laughter in the candy shops, mingled with the bells and rosy voices soaring from the vaulting cathedral heights. )

There is a universe of loss to be read in that scene, in those eyes.

Later she will be sprawled on his bed, in his penthouse apartment. And there are no shades and the city is glowingly alive through the windowpane, but abandoned by its sleepy denizens—a snowy skeleton sprawled out beneath their arching bodies. And she is in her lacy lingerie, so unbearably white, as white as her skin is white, as white as her hair is dark, as white as her eyes are brooding. You know it will be so, as certainly as you know the hollowness in your own heart—the aching want that wants to be filled with her eyes, her cheeks, her smile, her story.

She is an orphan. Her tightened muscles and darting eyes tell you so; exclaim it. Her parents met in some slum in Leningrad, in some romantic, vodka-fueled, passionate, and tragic tryst not so unlike the one she is having tonight, but without the glamour, brandy, and cigars. You can tell because her speech is all sophistication and cunning, but with a bite and bitter aftertaste that speak to working-class lovers, sloppy kisses, and bad breeding. She is a spy. You can tell by the way she hides her teeth when she laughs, like her mirth is a badly-kept secret. You can tell by the way she makes love, because her moans are deeper than the darkest well, and her eyes are shut against her pleasure.
Her name would be something foreign, feminine, and rare- a sapphire of a name, strong and deep, faceted and light-catching, satin and steely. Fantine, Anna, Marie, Cossette, Wei Wei, Eowyn, Summer, Miranda, Esmeralda, Nina. Nina, Nina, like a tiny ballerina, like a broken promise, like a runaway child, like a brief touch of heaven for an eternity in hell- burning passion and longing, locked up, tortured, burning, burning, while she is so coy, so afraid, and laughing cruelly all the while. Like Antoinette posed on the guillotine, precious and guilty. Like snow. Nina, Nina.

You could put her in a cage, like a sparrow, but she would neither fly nor sing. You could beg her to dance, to but speak your name, but she would deny you, again and again. Oh, but that would only make you love her all the more, dream of her always- of her nakedness under the snowing sky, of your name being swirled on her tongue, of her sure fingers dancing some mournful waltz on the piano as her eyes contemplate the grey and dreary countryside, misty and lonely beyond the clouded windowpane. You could keep her forever, and still she is always a secret, always safe from your prying thoughts, but you- she had every corner of you from the moment she thought to glance you, nothing of you is a mystery worth wanting, and you know it—knew it from the moment you saw her photograph, faded and dying in some attic somewhere. Dead and bones crumbling in some grave, anonymous and dirt, she is still more alive than you have ever been. She is intoxicating, unbearable, and never, ever yours.

You tuck the book under your arm. It feels secure and right, nestled against your side, the vaulted secrets of a life that never lived, but will live on long after the worms have forgotten you. You will lie in bed and it will whisper such secrets in your ear, the most patient of lovers, because it has forever.

There is nothing more beautiful, whole, and good than the tragically suggestive; nothing more dear than the company of a good book.

It's a prose poem! So smile!

Good Cheer and Violent Rioting Forever!
---Your Always Lovely Mei-Mei

Whore Shit Fuck! Revolution!!!

Sorry for the random title. I just wanted to be really intense. Whew.

So, I've been stalking Craig and Lan Chi's kick-ass blogs, and I'm like, "Kick? Aaaass? Why can't I do that?" Even Tyler says that I suck compared to them.

So, my friends, I am going to hang up my proverbial hat; rescue my proverbial towel back from the proverbial ring into which I proverbially threw it back in my younger, more reckless days. I am retiring to a secret island with lots of palm trees and Peperidge Farm cinnamon toast, passing my days fucking the natives (of both sexes), drinking free coffee, letting my many lackeys clean up my tampons, and doing anything BUT writing. Because I suck. This is the end of my dream. Goodbye. For-ever.

-------------------------------------------

That is what I would have said if I were Lan Chi. Luckily, I'm Mei-Mei, and I persevere despite my overall suckage (not that you suck, Lan Chi. I think you're fifty times as awesome as me on your most shitty day than I am on my best day. Not that you have shitty days). Three cheers for perseverence.

-------------------------------------------

So. Yeah. I haven't been writing lately. Tell me about it. My computer contracted a violent case the flu, was rushed to the hospital, underwent several major surgeries, and was returned to me with a severe case of amnesia. Whore Shit Fuck! Revolution!!!

Meanwhile, my friends have been hard at work. And they are better than me. And will be killed. Whore Shit Fuck! Revolution!!!

Ummm... I'm an ADD kid today. My brain is zipping through Zero Space right now... Brain? Brain?

Mmmmm. So, in light of my relative shittiness in the world of bloggage and the world of everything elseage, I wanted to write a Super! Kick! Ass! post today, about all the fun stuff that's happened to my friends and I, which my friends always enjoy. That would prop up my thoroughly humped self-esteem. But it's midnight. And I still have the introduction of a paper to work on. 2-3 pages. Usually not a problem for me. Except it's supposed to be an anecdote, about 1 of 2 topics, neither of which I have an anecdote for. Woah is Mei! Chivalry timbers! (heehee)

So, instead of doing something cool, I'm going to post something thoroughly uncool, just so I can say I've posted something fairly recently (for "something thuroughly uncool, read "my paper intro"). I've got a plan! You can do whatever you wannoo, Baybay, BaybAAAAaaay! G-get naked! Get naked!

-----------------------------------

I emerged in New Jersey for winter break, after a long and harrowing flight from South Carolina, thoroughly disgruntled. After hours of having my shoulder being made into a makeshift pillow by an elderly man who was overly fond of garlic, undergoing several claustrophobia-induced panic attacks, and having my bra probed for explosives, I was exhausted. My head was buzzing unpleasantly, like someone was mowing the lawn up there. My stomach was a vat of acid. The only things I had eaten in twenty-four hours were a condom-package-sized bag of airline peanuts and half a stale croissant I had left over from yesterday’s breakfast. I was ready to go home, relax, and eat myself into a stupor.

My mother greeted me by the baggage terminal, in the ecstasies of motherly affection, (“What happened? You’re an hour late!”), sent well-wishes from my father, who was working and could not be there (“Dad wants to know when you find out what you got on your finals.”), and told me how much the family had missed my warm presence (“Your brother needs you to help him on his Social Studies project.”) I’m being unkind to her, though. It wasn’t her fault. She was being harried from all sides, and couldn’t help but be in a less than ecstatic mood. She cheered up once we got into the car and were on our way. It was then that she revealed that she had a Surprise for me.

“I wanted to take you to Luchento’s,” she explained, “And I want to make sure that we’re back before Dad gets home.” She said this in a casual tone, but this was a Big Deal. Dad didn’t like us going out to eat, even when it was just for fast food and was absolutely necessary. Sometimes there were days when Mom had to drive my brother, Thomas, and I back and forth to school, teach a CCD class, take Thomas to piano lessons, and go to her choir practice all on the same day, and she didn’t have time to cook, so she had to get us some McDonald’s. It was an unspoken rule that whenever this happened, Thomas and I would throw away the incriminating packages somewhere where Dad wouldn’t find them, and never speak of the affair. Because if he ever found out, it meant an hour long lecture interspersed with yelling, and a ticking bomb in the house for the rest of the night. Almost anything would piss him off after that—Thomas whining about practicing his trumpet, Mom not acting completely chipper, or me talking about one of my teachers (he always suspected that I liked them better than him ever since I asked my AP English teacher for advice on my college essays before I asked him). So, if he got that mad about a five-dollar grease-burger and fries purchased in a time of great need, you can imagine what he would do if he found out that we ate out at a nice restaurant in a fit of frivolity. No wonder my mom was nervous about me getting off the plane late.

Luchento’s was one of my favorite restaurants; it served the best Italian I’d ever had. I especially appreciated it since good Italian had been in short supply in the land of grits and beans. I bit off large chunks of semolina bread and, when I had time to breathe, talked to my mom about how everyone was doing. I had trouble concentrating, though—I was too busy stalking our waiter with my eyes, muttering, “I want my food, scumbag,” under my breath, and wringing my hands in hunger. My pasta was finally placed before me, and I started eating at an ambitious pace. But then, all of a sudden, I was hit by a wave of nausea. It felt like someone had let loose a colony of army ants in my stomach. Suddenly dizzy, I hunched forward and pressed my face to the tablecloth, which felt good and cool against my burning skin.

“Melissa? What’s wrong?” asked my mom.

“Nothing,” I whimpered. “I haven’t eaten in a while; I think it’s getting to me.” Truthfully, I thought that it also had to do with my depression. I’d been tired and had a fluctuating appetite for the last month, although this seemed more serious. So, the next day, I went to the doctor, and got the blessed news.

“You have mononucleosis,” he said.

“There goes my winter vacation,” I said.

Staying confined to your room for a month had its advantages. For one thing, no one tries to force you to go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve. You can stay out of the way whenever Grandpa goes into a fit at the mention of the words “youth culture” on Fox News, opt out of Dad’s twentieth rendition of the “Laura and the hamburger with the hair in it” story, and have a convenient escape when Grandma embarks on her Matlock marathon. Even with my migraines, I managed to get through my entire reading list. Twice. One evening, as I skimmed Javert’s suicide scene in my well-worn copy of Les Miserables, it occurred to me that I was bored. I considered venturing downstairs, but had the presence of mind to eavesdrop before making the final decision. It turned out that Grandpa was complaining about a wedding invitation he had received (the bride and groom had already had a child together, so, apparently, they had no right to throw a party for their marriage). All things considered, it seemed most prudent to remain in bed. I began rummaging through my old books, and found one that I had never read. It was called Bass Ackwards and Belly Up. Not the greatest title, but I was desperate for something new to read. Two hours later, I had finished, but my mind was still going over each scene.

The book was about four girls who graduated high school and decided to take a year off before going to college to pursue their dreams. The way the book had explained their decisions made the whole thing seem incredibly logical and plausible, and yet… in my middle class upbringing, it never seemed like a real possibility for me, as stupid as that sounds. Bad kids graduated high school and went to go work. Good kids went to respectable colleges, respectable grad schools, worked respectable jobs, had respectable families, went into retirement at a respectable age, and died respectably. Or so I’d been told. This book was an epiphany. I didn’t have to do that. And why should I?

I wanted to go to college, of course. I like learning; I want to be an educated person. But why should I enter into a career right after graduation? I’m not taking out loans. I don’t ever need to make a lot of money, if I don’t want to.

I look at my family, and I know that I’ve been making myself sick with worry trying to do everything they want. I love them, but they look at the world in a different way than I do. The things that make them happy won’t make me happy, and vice versa. Of course, they’ll be thoroughly pissed if I don’t go right off to grad school, but, in the end, it won’t kill them if I end up one or two years “behind schedule.” And I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I never take a chance and do something adventurous.

I realize I’ve always delved into books to escape the rather dull expectations of my parents. There’s nothing appealing to me about being a career woman. Nothing. The only reason I’d ever want to do that is so I could have a family, and I don’t want to be the same kind of parent either of mine have been. I’ve always figured that the romantic lives that characters lead in books—traveling the world, working job to job, country to country—are gifts reserved only for those who are lucky enough to live in a world that is fictional. I want to live like that, if just for a time. I want to taste true freedom. I want to know what kind of person I could be if I had the chance to live just for myself. When I imagine the limitless horizon, the oceans and continents full of unknown beauty, the billions of people I could meet and maybe love, it seems sad and unfair that I should live out my days in this one tiny corner of the world.

Yet, even as I write this, my dream seems unreal. I’ve been so conditioned to think that my whole life needs to take place here—in this country, on this timetable—that it feels unspeakably blasphemous to want anything different. Hopefully, as I write this paper and examine all the specificities of what traveling the world would entail, what considerations I would have to take, and whether it is really plausible to embark on it and still keep my dreams of having a family alive, the whole thing will become more real. I hope, by the end of my research, to not only have a plan, but the will to see it through.

Nevermind... Freewrite!

I dreamt all day of catching butterflies, of holding them on my tongue. I saw purple meadows, and lilac bridges, sang laments for the dead child who the buried in me. For seventeen years, the window sat alone, frosted even in springtime. The child sat and waited for the summer to come, to lift her out of the house. She waited for the sounds of the bees, for the honey to seep through her pores. She waited for the ice-cream rush of happiness, the part that felt like butter melting in her belly, for the kisses that would never be hers. For the sun to toast her evenly, to fill in all the parts of her that had been hollowed by time, so she could seep through with the joy of a worriless day.



I dreamt of the penniless theatre-goer, who sat in the shadows and cried for humanity. She had dark hair, and dark eyes that were sunken and wise.



"I had a life once," she said, "But I dreamt it away."



"I had a love once," she said, "But he was a dream."



She was wearing far too many necklaces, and all of her skin was in shadows. Her fingernails were long and her dress was black like the feathers of a crow, dusty with too many travels. I knew she was looking for home.



I dreamt of the sailor with his eyes on the shore. It was misty with fog and his tears. It was green and silver, full of trees and towers, gleaming and vying for a place in the sky. The shore seemed impossibly worn, like a lover who had seen too much of herself in the mirror.



We're all beaten down until we're just the dust of our minds. We're hysterical for something familiar. We want to be reminded of the wholeness we'd had, but we're sifting and shifting, and it's all mixed up. I'm nothing more than a mix of me and the world, and the world is nothing more than a mix of itself and me.



I just want a little bit to keep of the world. The red of my carpet in the June sun, at 4 o'clock, when it would shine right through my window. I want the lilac of the sky on the easter morning in the year I can't remember, and the too-sweet taste of candy that was so good after hours of church. I want to lock your every word in my soul, to remember every toss of your hair. Today, you wore it long and free. I want the exact color brown of your skin, I want a word to name it. I want to put all my little joys in a locket, and to keep them always mine.



After death, after time, after physics has collapsed, I want my quiet little life, and the warble of your voice. I'll have the taste of rasberry jelly buttered toast on Christmas morning, the quiet, silver light of winter, the bells and lights and burning snow, the warmth of the Chinese restaraunt where I shared the last happy moments with my family. I read The Kitchen God's Wife on the bus ride home, and I quitely cried for the love that ate me hollow, and imagined I could smell him in the pages. I thought of the days we spent together in museums, when the world seemed open and full of possibility, even in the face of all that death. Even in the tombs of all those fantastic hopes, he was so funny and alive, I thought that such a joy needed to live forever. When I laughed with him, all unhappiness seemed like a lie.



It seems strange that after all those years of love, I should find myself so completely fallen. My body fleshy and weak, my face pallid and drooping, and my will to care. The more I try to act like I'm happy, the weaker I've become. I don't know this woman, she is not me.

An Exercise in Straying Off Topic... you'll see

So... today my assignment is to write about my obsessions. This seemed fairly easy yesterday, but now, when I am far from being in "writing mode" the idea just seems depressing. Oh well, a writer's life is full of misery! So I must forge onward! Perseverance! Fortitude! Condoms!

So... what am I obsessed with?

Teachers

I still don't know why. I just find this profession to be as sexy as all hell. I think about my teachers constantly. I romanticize them, speculate about what they are like outside of the classroom, analyze and enshrine every word they say, and look at their existence with a very peculiar kind of affection. People who I probably would not like or notice in any other situation become objects of my attention and scrutiny. Even if I do not like or approve of them, I cannot help but feel a certain kind of fondness for them. Maybe it's because I'm a suck-up, show-off bitch. I'm eager for adult approval and affection, because I didn't receive it from my parents. I need someone to look up to and idolize. Or I'm a whore. Or both. Either way.

I don't really think that this started happening consciously until high school. I always had liked school, and liked doing impressive, elaborate projects that impressed my teachers, whoring myself in general. But I don't remember ever wanting them to like me for any other reason than the fact that it meant that I was going to get a good grade, and that I wouldn't have to deal with them bitching at me. Not that I was a goody-goody or anything. I didn't aim to be a teacher's pet; not really. I got written up loads of times in my younger years for disrespect, talking in class, sarcastic comments, and emotional outbursts. I liked being appreciated for my brains and creativity, not for my subservience. Probably the reason that I didn't really like my teachers when I was younger was that they were too focused on what I saw as stupid, arbitrary rules.

But when I went to high school, that pretty much changed. Suddenly, teachers had senses of humor. They confessed to being human, they laughed at their mistakes and their laziness. They encouraged us to voice our opinions in class, and didn't expect us to be "on our best behavior." They wanted us to be individuals, not robots. And they all had personality. And they like me, even though I was a giant loser.

It was all downhill from there.

I feel so weird and stupid writing this. My obsession with Jansen, Parks, Hein, Cataneo, McClain, Holinko, Leone, and all the others is simply embarrassing. The degree to which I took this isn't really frightening-- I didn't stalk them or really act creepy in any way. I just thought about them. A lot. I found their personalities fascinating, and hilarious. They were the subjects of constant jokes between my friends and I. House of Orange actually originated from an inside joke between me, Sam, Fallon, and Rikki about how Mr. Jansen and Ms. Cataneo would make a great couple, and how it would be awesome if they could raise a kid together. His name would be Glenore, I decided. Later, that was extended to Lord Glenore Horation C'tansen. I blended this with the theory we had once purported, freshman year, that Jansen and Hein were gay lovers. I added our extreme dislike for our valedictorian (we shall call her Dandy Candy, to protect the not-that-innocent) with a dash of the insanity and Napoleon Complex of Mr. Leone, and my everlasting love for Theodore Roosevelt (I used to eat Teddy Grams in class, and liken them to the Great Bull Moose... my friend Yelena and I even made up a song for them!) and the result was Glenore, the play that would form the basis of House of Orange. The writing of this play was a very public affair, and I showed it to my friends, who made requests to have characters based on themselves added into the mix. The result was that soon the plot became too burdensome to be contained in one play. I decided to make it into a novel.

Okay, while we're on the subject, I guess I will do my best to explain the plot of House of Orange. I was talking to Professor Conway today (more on that later) about my paper, and he asked the question I've always dreaded hearing: "What exactly is this book about?"

"Uhhh..." I said stupidly, "There's a reason I didn't include that in the paper. It's super complicated. Like, twenty different story lines and character arcs intersecting and crashing into one giant climax."

"Yeah, well you're going to need to be able to pitch that to editors in a concise way."

No shit, Sherlock, thought evil Mei. Nice Mei said ever-so-carefully, "Yeah, I know it's a problem. I've got to find the heart of the story, and get rid of the unnecessary stuff."

"Yeah," says Conway, stroking his red little beard-thing pathetically. "450 pages is too long to get published."

Evil Mei was thoroughly ticked. Did he even read this paper??? (I always get this sinking feeling that teachers don't really read my papers. It might be paranoia. Then again... they always seem to miss fairly evident passages. Like the two paragraphs I spent talking about how editors aren't going to want a book this long!!! Actually, the whole damn essay was about the shortcomings of my manuscript, and how to get it up to snuff to make it viable for publication. I felt like he was just re-posing all the questions I asked myself in the fucking thing. Jeeze. Paranoia, you say? I'll post the paper later. You tell me what you think. Paranoia my ass.) Nice Mei said, ever so tenderly, so as not to hurt Conway's soft, pink professor feelings,"I did try to address that issue in my paper. From what I read in all my research, a slightly longer novel is acceptable in Historical Fiction and Fantasy genres. And my story is a blend of the two. But it does need work. That's why I wrote this paper." I kept the bitch to a minimum.

"Yeah," Conway asserted weakly, "You won't have much luck publishing something of that length as literary fiction."

"As I concluded in my paper."

"Yeah."

"Yeah." Then I laughed, this stupid little half-nervous, half-frustrated laugh. I fidgeted with my sleeves. They were green. Green sleeves. Haha. Henry the Eighth was fat. And red. Like Professor Conway. I gave another short little grunt/chuckle.

"What?" he asked, looking vexed. And pink. So very pink and red. Like a flaming, embarrassed pumpkin drenched in the blood of a ginger kid. All these shades of red.

"I don't know," I said. It was true. I didn't. I had no idea what was going on. I was babbling. Kind of like now.

So yes. As red and oblivious as Professor Conway might be, he embarrassed me into facing reality. Even though I had already told myself that my book was not publishable for all the reasons listed above, having him say it kind of drove home that fact. In a very uncomfortable way that made me squirm under his bored, laconic gaze.

So, I figure I'll practice explaining the cumbersome plot of my not-so-magnum-opus to you peeps. Because you care. Oh so much.

This post is too long. I'll start a new one. Especially since we're going on to a very important topic that merits its very own Grand Post of Postage.

See you on the other side.

Lots of Trouble, A Few Solutions

So, as I sat reading my How to Write and Not Suck books the other day, I got the urge to sit down and start doing something, dammit. This always happens when I read books about writing, buy stationary paper and pens, or see someone else writing. I won't necessarily say that they inspire me, because that sounds a little to grand. They just incite jealously. They make me think, "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if I could be that cool? If I could sit down and write pretty little letters on pretty little pages, and have them come to life? Create a world of my own on paper?" I don't think this qualifies as inspiration, because nothing ever comes of it. Maybe I'll sit down to write, but nothing ever comes out. I still haven't mastered the act of writing. I'm awful good at thinking about it, though. I think the main problem with me is that I am too abstract. Just look at this blog. Look at what I'm writing now! I live in a world of thoughts, not actions. I imagine the things I would like my characters to feel. I find it hard to write, in any detail, the events that bring about that feeling. I dwell so much on the internal reactions of the person whose perspective I am writing from, that I never really have scenes. I have monologues. Streams of consciousness. Everything is too loose and wordy. This might, might be okay if I could write a little better. But, somehow, even when I'm dallying, everything feels rushed, because I always feel like I'm just writing through this part to get to the next scene. This is often how I live my life, too. I'm always looking ahead, anticipating. I usually can't live in the moment until I shut off my thoughts completely. And I can only do that by doing something completely inane that I can lose myself in. Watching TV, watching my friends play video games, playing DDR, or reading an easy book.

Whatever. I'm rambling. Maybe this isn't why I have that problem with writing. Maybe I'm rushing because I want to get to some kind of climactic scene, something I've actually been looking forward to writing. And I'm so slow in getting started that I usually give up before I can actually get there. I know I need to just get through the beginning, but self-discipline has never been my thing. Other people would say that if I find a scene boring to write, that I should not include it, and certainly not have it in the opening. The book should grab the reader from the very first sentence and not let them down until the very last. I don't necessarily agree. An
Ocean Between is at least partially an adventure story, that is true enough, but I don't really think of it as a page turner. It's more of a psychological study of the main character, Bernard, and the people he encounters. It's a commentary on society. It's a satire that sometimes (too often, I think) sounds like a farce. It's a mystery and a tragedy. It's... hard to pin down, but not a page turner in the sense that there is some kind of action going on all the time. I like to take my time (yet I always sound rushed?... it's days like this that I feel hopeless...) I don't know, dammit. I've just always liked books that start out in a kind of provincial setting, with small problems that get left behind when the main character leaves for bigger and not-always-better things. In this way, I think that Bernard's story, at least the first half, fits nicely in the the bildungsroman genre. Then a wrench is thrown into things when the Miranda is shipwrecked.

I'm sorry that my thoughts are going all over the place here, but this is how I think. And therefore write. Which I don't think is necessarily a good thing. There is an underlying structure and patter to my thoughts. There is. I just don't know if anybody but myself can see it. We often think that we are making sense, because we fill in our logical gaps and see the tenuous connections between our thoughts when we really are jumping all over the place, at least in the eyes of others. I know I have this problem. I just have a really hard time fixing it. On the one hand, I don't want to completely lose my way of thinking, because I think it can be really interesting as long as people are following it. But I just can't tell when my stuff is going to lose people. I'm always surprised to find that my readers have lost me in a section where it never even crossed my mind that I was being obscure. Ugh.

Having been sidetracked again, I will now make the point that I was apologizing before when I said I was jumping all over the place. The prologue, yeah. I've always conceived of An Ocean Between starting with a prologue that takes place after the main action of the story, showing Bernard in the depressed state he reaches after the sinking of the Miranda, falling in love with her, bla bla bla. I liked this idea, because I've always been keen on keeping this portion of the story connected with the main part of House of Orange, and the prologue takes place during the action of Glenore, the third portion of the trilogy and the book where Bernard makes his appearance. I've read several successful books that have been written like this, with the reader seeing the main character first at their lowest point, and then being reintroduced in the first chapter to a person very much unlike the one in the prologue-- happy, if a little naive. The reader wonders, What happened to this person to transform them into the one that we just met in the prologue? It's a different kind of suspense, and I think it works well in tragedies and character studies. Yet, despite these advantages, there are setbacks to this structure, which is why I'm considering ditching it. Even if I gain the kind of suspense I described above, the fact remains that I am giving away the ending. This changes the kinds of feelings that the audience experiences when reading the story, and I'm not sure whether I want that or not. Plus, I feel like my own prologue is weak, a combination of what I feel is bad writing, and the fact that I don't want to give too much away, either about the endings of An Ocean Between or House of Orange.

I seem to have an attraction to these kinds of beginnings. Why? To a certain degree, it puts the reader in the main character's mind. The are introduced to him in the "present" and are allowed to look back in time with him, remembering all the things that went wrong. It gives the book a bittersweet quality, heavy on the bitter. When characters are on the ship with Bernard, when he thinks about his budding romances with Doll and Faina, we are reminded of the tragedy that awaits them all. It gives more weight to even the seemingly unimportant interactions, and the lighter moments in the book. Readers wonder if there is any way that their favorites will survive; if they can leave the ship before it reaches the end. They also are forced to look at Bernard with a critical eye and wonder, "What is it about him that leads him to crash his ship in a way that makes him blame himself? Is it really his fault, or is he self-loathing?" They pay attention to Bernard's character. Same with any other character that is introduced in this way. The more I think about it the more I think that the "flash forward" prologue is the best way to approach this story. It fits. But I don't like the one that I have now. I think the best thing to do is start from Chapter 1, write logically until the conclusion, write an epilogue, and then stick that epilogue onto the beginning and make it the prologue. That way I will know the full extent of what Bernard's journey has done to him psychologically, and be able to write the thing more accurately. It's worth the risk of giving away some information. Just the same as this entire book risks giving away surprises about the first two portions of House of Orange.

This book is to the trilogy as The Hobbit was to The Lord of the Rings. It's coming out before the trilogy, serving as an introduction to the world, in a more digestible form than the trilogy itself. But The Hobbit took place before The Lord of the Rings not towards the end of it, like my book. It didn't risk giving too much away concerning the plot twists of the main book. It gave Bilbo's back story, introduced the audience to some important locations and characters, and set up the mystery about the ring. That's about it. An Ocean Between is inevitably going to do much more. To a certain degree, this is good, because it will let readers have some "Aha!" moments, when they realize the significance of certain events in the first book. On the other hand, I could easily give too much away and spoil the surprises of the trilogy. I walk a fine line.

Going back to my problems with getting the ball rolling with the first chapter. Some people would say that if I don't feel like writing this part now, I should skip to one that I do feel like writing and start from there. Write that scene that's been dancing around in my head. Put it on paper. Get something solid done. Something I'll like. I do think this is good advice, and I wish I could take it. That's just not they way I work, unfortunately. I have concepts of scenes, of characters, and problems I would like them to have. Unfortunately, I think only in shadows. I have clear glimpses of maybe one line I would like to write, one tender, blazing glance shared between lovers, the heartbreaking childhood of a villain. But they lack detail or reason, because I don't know how I arrived at this scene. The rest of the writing is supposed to fill in the blanks. I can't just skip to the scenes and write them, because I don't know how they got there in any specific terms. I'd be left with something like my prologue. Okay, but missing something. I need to start from the beginning, because I'm all about building. Taking a situation and a couple of characters, and piling on the complications. Every event, every conversation, has an effect on how each character behaves and thinks, so I can't just skip ahead and write something without knowing everything that lead up to it.

Okay, I think that's enough mush-mush for today. You see now why I need organization and structure. Otherwise, I just go off willy-nilly saying anything.

So, in the spirit of discipline and organization, I am going to make a tentative agenda for myself. Tomorrow, I am going to write about my obsessions. I've been reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Something (I'll look up her last name later). A lot of what she says in that book resonates with me, and I'll be doing exercises from that book here, because she has a lot of cool ideas. One that I really thought would help in organizing my thoughts for blogging and novel-writing is to write about my obsessions. I'd get a concrete idea of what I value and what I like to think and write about, so I could maybe identify some important themes for my book-- like Bernard's fatal flaw, important for any tragedy. I'm thinking indecisiveness for now. That sounds like him. Very Hamlet. Very cool-- and just things to include or focus on that will make writing more enjoyable and Natural! (the thing that's hardest for me).

After that, I am going to write down everything I know about An Ocean Between so far, and nothing more. Just my vague thoughts about what's happening with each of the characters, their motivations, etc. The structure of the plot. It's probably going to be very confusing, and very poorly conceived. So, when I'm finished, I'm going to identify the gaps I need to fill in. Those will be the subjects of my blogs in the future, one blog per gap. I'm not going to get super-detailed, I just want to have a good idea, when I'm writing, the next major event that I'm building towards, so I can keep the pacing good. I need a sense of direction, otherwise I go in circles. I'm also going to make a list of major and minor characters. I will dedicate one post each to the backgrounds of each of the major characters, and their roles in the book. I'll get an idea of their arch. For the more minor characters, I might blog about two or three per post. I vow to write every day. That's another suggestion from Natalie, and one I desperately need to take. You see how I am. I get enthusiastic, write in gushes, get discouraged/lazy, and setting back into my laconic state. I will not do this anymore. If I do, barring some major emergency, please: slap me.

I have my mission. Now all that's left is to do it!

Yours in Death,
The Incorrigible Mei-Mei