Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Things I Don't Like

Recently I've been thinking that my creative soul may be slowly dying, since I haven't been writing. So to combat that I decided to start writing again, and the easiest place to do that is here on my blog. After all, it's here that I feel I can be my truest self. It's here that my words and thoughts spill out freely and easily. I'm hoping that someday I can read some of the entries I've posted here and think to myself, Wow. Who WAS that girl? In my mind, my future self is a glamorous, icy, THIN, woman who wears tailored black dresses and pearls and goes to benefit dinners. I don't know how I'll morph from the person I am today into the clearly much better version of myself that I've just described, but you'll all be along for the ride. 

A long, long time ago (we're talking months, here), I started a list of things I don't like. I created the list as a note on my iPod touch, and I've been adding to it ever since. Theoretically this list could grow and grow to the point where my iPod touch would no longer have the memory to house it, so I thought I'd better transcribe it here, as long as everyone who reads this understands that the list will continue to grow in my head forever and ever.

Things I Don't Like:

Defrosting meats
Getting pulled over
Yogurt
The fact that I feel like a failure if I don't brush my teeth for a "full" two minutes
When people stand too close to me while I'm ringing myself up at the self check out
Cash only places
That I now have to worry about people who own their own zoos getting depressed, setting all their   animals free, and then killing themselves
Family style restaurants--I want my OWN food, thank you very much
Sharing a bed with anyone other than a boyfriend
Sharing
Old chocolate (like when you get a chocolate covered cherry at a gas station and it's got an old whitish-looking, frost-looking coating on it, and it's all imploded)
Sand in my bed
Small talk
Dry feet
The sound of someone snuffing out a cigarette
The high cost of movie theater snacks
Paperwork
Strange noises that make you think your electronics are about to break
Icy roads
Repeats on TV
When weathermen (and women) do the weather in a threatening way that makes me feel like the world is about to come to an end just because there's snow in the forecast
Overstuffed couches
Velvet
Weeks that I don't get paid
Really expensive mannequins
The fact that other people seem to be "better at" life than I am
Raw eggs
Baby/wedding showers
A really full garbage can that I don't feel like emptying
Being out of paper towel
The fact that I am both mesmerized by and terrified of deer
Magazine inserts
Having to change the toilet paper roll
People who just set the new roll of toilet paper on the sink instead of actually changing the roll
Tying my shoes--what a hassle!
Being out of ice
Those popsicles that have no stick and are in a long plastic tube--I know everyone loves those, but I DON'T and I don't know why everyone else does and that bugs me
Having to sit in the middle of a movie theater row--I don't want to have to climb over people to go pee or to go purchase $18 worth of chicken poppers and snow caps
When someone is following me
The very early morning hours--that's my scary time
Making phone calls
That feeling right before the roller coaster starts when you're "not sure" your bar is clicked down all the way
When my cursor goes nuts
When my chimp won't take a bath no matter how many times I play Everybody Hurts (usually works like a charm)
The movie Rachel Getting Married
Climbing a lot of flights of stairs next to someone who is more fit than I am  and worrying that they are judging me for being out of breath
Beets
Bridge collapses
Hidden fees
That open space in a public bathroom stall that seems really easy for strangers to look through and see me half naked
Missing people
Heartbreak
Spinach

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Wistful Thinking

Most days, it's easy to feel good about my life. After all, I have so much more than so many people. For one, I don't have a hook for a hand. Also, I've never done that thing where I put one red sock in with all my whites. Actually, I don't sort my laundry because that requires patience and a desire for "crisp" colors that I frankly don't possess. I have been called fat while riding my bike in my bathing suit when I was in my early teens, but I'm just about over that. So yeah, my life isn't horrible. But there are still days where I feel trapped and helpless. There are days where I feel like I made a terrible wrong turn somewhere and I have no idea how I ended up where I am.

My mom and I took a trip recently, to Nashville, for a family wedding. In the days leading up to the trip, when I would feel my usual "where is my life headed?" ennui, I told myself not to worry because soon, I would be on the road, hurtling toward a new place, a place entirely different from my usual surroundings. This trip, this change in my routine, I convinced myself, would give my life meaning--at least for a few days. And that's what I long for. I want to feel alive, I guess.

It did feel good to get out of Michigan. I sat in the passenger seat, not listening to music or watching movies on my iPod or reading one of the dozen magazines I brought, just looking out the window at the countryside, the farms, the towns, the trees and open fields. I've always liked looking out the window. Maybe it's the writer in me. I like to get a glimpse into other people's worlds. I have a deep melancholy for places I've never been and lives I haven't lived.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was when my mom and I stopped at Arby's. The employees all had southern accents, and because I don't have a southern accent, I imagined that they were all delighted by my uniqueness and entranced by my lack of twang. I long to be cool and mysterious. I wanted one of them to say something to me like, "You sound like up north." And later I actually told my mom that one of them did say that to me, because it just makes for an adorable anecdote, even though it's a completely made-up lie.

The wedding was beautiful, but it served as a painful reminder that my life is bitterly empty and without meaning or purpose. I don't have a boyfriend, so I'm certainly nowhere near getting engaged or married. And I probably won't have a baby anytime soon, which I want even more than I want to get married. I might have to go to a sperm bank. I might! Just let it go. I think I can do most of the process of picking out the ideal sperm donor from my iPhone, so it's not going to be a big hassle when I decide to do it. And that's nice. At least there's an app for that, you know??

The other day, I was lying in bed doing nothing, so I decided to watch one of the myriad of programs I taped thinking oooohhh that sounds good, I'll want to watch that later. This particular show was on TLC and it was called "Half Ton Killer?" It was about this woman who weighs around 850 pounds and how she killed her nephew by rolling over on him. Or did she? The show was trying to figure out if she killed him or if she was covering for her sister. I'll save you an hour. She was covering for her sister, who beat the child to death with a hairbrush. It turns out the half ton woman couldn't have killed her nephew by rolling over on him because, you guessed it, she can't roll over. The point of me telling you all this is that this woman, the half ton woman, was married! And before you ask me, her husband was pretty normal looking! And he was nice.

That's it, you guys. I give up. I've heard that you meet "the" guy the minute you stop looking. So I guess I'll stop looking, which means my future husband is probably the crane operator who'll be helping to remove me from my bedroom once I reach half-ton status. A girl can dream, right?