My Life and a Note on Unoriginality

Greetings, my esteemed friends and readers, from the depths of The Underbelly.

Speaking of which, Ihave a pronouncement! (ahem, ahem)

So, I, Mei-Mei, Queen of the Underbelly, after posting my very first and very posty post, was so proud of my extreme posty-ness, that I decided to search, "The Underbelly" on Google... you know, to see if this Oh-So-Wonderful-Blog showed up in the search. I was appalled to learn that there was a show on ABC called, "Notes from the Underbelly." Yeah. I had no idea, did you? Maybe you did... I was never very well-versed in pop culture, so there you go. Well, needless to say I felt a deep sense of loss, since I thought that The Underbelly was a very stylish and unusual sobriquet.

I. Am. A. Loser.

And I appologize. Sincerely.

Oh, well, life goes on.

Speaking of life, did I not promise you the story of my life? Yes, yes, I think I did. And since you were looking forward to that so, so much! I can't very well back out of my promise, now can I? No, no I can't.

I'm pretty sure I'm like the majority of the world in that I feel that there is an awful lot to be said of myself. My Story is deep, complicated, and engaging (well, to me, anyway) and, when I contemplate my life, I find no shortage of things to ruminate upon. But when somebody asks that fateful question... oh no.

"So, Melissa, tell me about yourself."

"Oh, well, um, yeah. I'm... uhhh...."

Yeah. Big blank spot. How do you respond to a friggin' question like that? It's ridiculous that anybody can even think that you could possibly sum up your life for them, right there, on the spot.

If you're Tori, you'll talk about sports and boys and how you're going to college to get free tickets to football games and bars... to the admissions officer from Duke.

If you're Johnathon, you'll throw the question back at them. "Why do you want to know? What's the point of you knowing?" You'll say this in a half whisper, half cackle, while planting this big, stupid, creepy grin on your face. I love Johnathon.

If you're Lan Chi, you'll be awfully surprised that anyone's asking you in the first place. Then you'll tell them that you're a hopeless failure and that they shouldn't bother with you anyway. If you're around the right people

If you're Qiu, you'll say, "Weeelll... I'm Chinese. I'm in da Architechure. My brudder... he's smarter dan me. And I want to make money! Don't tip the pizza boy!" But you'll sound so Asian and cute that the fact that you're a stingy little girl will go over most people's heads.

If you're Tyler, you'll look real nervous and say, "Uhhmmm... I don't know. My life is boring. And pointless. And I'm not really convinced that I exist, anyway."

If you're Vincey, you'll start to prattle on about Graphic Design.

If you're Khoa, you'll talk about how amazing you are at pretty much everything, and how you want to build a gundum and take over the woooorrrllllddd!!!

And if you're Craig, you'll snap, "None of you're business!"

But what about me? I've done a pretty good job of avoiding the question, haven't I? I guess I'm cornered now.... okay.

Well, I was born on April 19th, 1989, and nothing that unusual happened to me in my first bland years of existance... just the normal baby stuff. Apparently, I was quite the genius from an early age, though. Because I used to walk around and point out all the shapes I saw, like, a couple of months after I started to talk. "Tri-angle! Tri-angle! Par-o-lell-o-gram!" (this is according to my mom) Oh, yeah. Sexy, I know. Funny how I turned out to be the sensitive poet-type, and not a math prodigy. Go figure.

Well, life went on, and soon I was in preschool, being sent to the Principal's Office on a daily basis. I had a problem with authority figures, okay? Dammit, they wouldn't even let me finish with the Legos! It was there that I met my first best friend, Christopher. We both had a merry time romping gaily in the savannah conveniently located in my backyard, and chasing his little sister around until she cried. Then he moved to Chicago. Bye, Chris.

A little later, I made a replacement friend. This one was called Michelle. I'm just kidding, though... she was a lot more than a replacement friend... she was a perfectly bizzare companion for all of the weird little adventures I liked to embark on. We were both really into this book series called Animorphs, and we had loads of fun pretending that the Yeerks were coming to get us, performing dangerous medical procedures on her very ill stuffed animals, chasing the ice cream truck, and engaging in a variety of other childhood pleasures. She moved to Pennsylvania at the end of 5th grade, leaving me bereft.

Okay, this is getting a little long, isn't it? I'll continue when I get a chance. It gets more interesting, I promise!

Forever, Love and Puppies!
Your Adorable Mei-Mei