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.

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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.

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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!

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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.