Well, I was going to stay stuff about funny stuff,
but then I ended up saving it for a story where it will get tucked away on a shelf, and when I die in a few weeks (I always think I'm just about to die) it won't get read for a year or two until my family can handle to start reading all of the sappy stories I've written. Or, if I live, it will go in the arsenal.
And, an aside on my fiction-writing:
I read a piece this week for my final Creative Writing workshop, and when class was over, my new friend Marc said, "It was good, a bit like your other piece though, in that, she was so lonely," and I knew he was right, and I stewed for a few hours over whether or not I keep writing the same character over again. And here's what has happened to me.
a) I re-read No one Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July at Christmas time, and what I realized I knew and loved about her writing, was that deep-seated loneliness that every human being has(man or woman, teenager or fifty-year-old business man) almost all of the days of their lives, and how she shows that without really saying it
b) I started to believe it is a fact that every single person, whether married or slave, or divorced, or perpetually single (ME), or homeless guy, or Prime Minister, or alien from outer space... they are suppressing the loneliness (not necessarily a libido all the time, Sigmund) and that this loneliness is the hole that God wants to fill.
c) Maybe we do all feel the loneliness, but some of us definitely don't admit to it. Or either way, I started writing stories about this same girl who lives alone, surrounded by people, and I don't even necessarily think she is me. I'm just trying to take care of her. But I need to write a couple old man stories, maybe, for Marc, so he thinks I'm just not writing the same white-girl story over and over.
So now that that's over, here are some of the other things that have been happening to me.
I clumsily spilled an entire venti coffee on a really sweet guy one week ago, and I've never been so embarrassed in my life. And you know, dear friend, how little I use the superlatives. I tried to think of my top five most embarrassing moments, but none came close to this.
I took Ceramics 1 twice in highschool. The second time was with my best friend Kelsea, and one day, after walking out of the bathroom and all the way to Ceramics, and then in and out of the storage room, and then sitting down, our teacher said,
"Kelsea, does Rachel know she has toilet paper sticking out of the back of her pants?" because he was never sure what things we were doing on purpose, and I'm pretty sure most of my teachers thought I did drugs.
And Kelsea said, "I doubt it," or something, and then came and whispered it to me, and while my face turned bright red, this did not even come close to the bright red burns that were probably on this guy's thighs when I drenched them in coffee. And then he tried to tip me, which made it worse.
Besides that, I finished college.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Sunday, April 22, 2012
"I'm not real big on guys with hats."
-Hannah B., who is making me feel better about my dating standards
A lot of funny/sad/lonely/embarrassing things have been happening to me lately, which is really fortunate from a writer's standpoint, but not so hot from a just-trying-to-live-a-normal-life standpoint.
I will start with Thursday which was funny, and see if I have more energy later for sad, lonely, and embarrassing.
I went to the Art Barn for a reading, and my Jenny Lewis classmate showed up.
"Oh hey, Jessica right?"
"No, it's Rachel," I say, not all that shocked that she forgot my name even after our many conversations.
"Oh that's right, well this is.....Tony," she said, squinting her eyes as she looked at him. "Tony B." (I'm not leaving his name out for privacy, she actually called him that.)
"Hello Tony, nice to meet you," I said.
"Nice to meet you," he smiled, looking at me, but not really looking at me.
Jeni was looking around the room. "Nice place they've got here," and pointed at a photograph and started laughing, "Look, it's art," she said.
I was noticing that she still had not said what she was doing with Tony, and if this was a date or not.
"Is this your first time here?" I asked.
"Yes," she laughed, and got up abruptly to look around.
I looked at Tony.
"So you guys been friends long?" Thinking he might correct me and say he was her boyfriend.
"No. We don't know each other that well," he kept looking around.
"So you just thought you'd come to support Jeni?"
"Yeah," he said. I tried to give him room to make up a story, but it turns out that he probably is really just someone she bought pot from, and invited him to come to our reading.
Sometimes I wonder how people get any work done when they smoke pot, but Jeni's rain story was actually more interesting than I thought it was going to be when I first wrote about her a few weeks back. I always think pot was just a high school thing. I forget people are really still doing it.
But then, I spend all of my time at other responsible people's houses.
-Hannah B., who is making me feel better about my dating standards
A lot of funny/sad/lonely/embarrassing things have been happening to me lately, which is really fortunate from a writer's standpoint, but not so hot from a just-trying-to-live-a-normal-life standpoint.
I will start with Thursday which was funny, and see if I have more energy later for sad, lonely, and embarrassing.
I went to the Art Barn for a reading, and my Jenny Lewis classmate showed up.
"Oh hey, Jessica right?"
"No, it's Rachel," I say, not all that shocked that she forgot my name even after our many conversations.
"Oh that's right, well this is.....Tony," she said, squinting her eyes as she looked at him. "Tony B." (I'm not leaving his name out for privacy, she actually called him that.)
"Hello Tony, nice to meet you," I said.
"Nice to meet you," he smiled, looking at me, but not really looking at me.
Jeni was looking around the room. "Nice place they've got here," and pointed at a photograph and started laughing, "Look, it's art," she said.
I was noticing that she still had not said what she was doing with Tony, and if this was a date or not.
"Is this your first time here?" I asked.
"Yes," she laughed, and got up abruptly to look around.
I looked at Tony.
"So you guys been friends long?" Thinking he might correct me and say he was her boyfriend.
"No. We don't know each other that well," he kept looking around.
"So you just thought you'd come to support Jeni?"
"Yeah," he said. I tried to give him room to make up a story, but it turns out that he probably is really just someone she bought pot from, and invited him to come to our reading.
Sometimes I wonder how people get any work done when they smoke pot, but Jeni's rain story was actually more interesting than I thought it was going to be when I first wrote about her a few weeks back. I always think pot was just a high school thing. I forget people are really still doing it.
But then, I spend all of my time at other responsible people's houses.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
"So I've been stalking all the people I went to high school with on Facebook, and 95% of them are married or had a baby or both."
"Oh my gosh, Rachel, that is not creepy at all," Kirsten scoffs while she scrubs the drains.
"You guys, this is really normal."
"OH MY GOSH," is the obligatory Roxanne response that I have come to know and count on in the harder moments of wearing a collared black shirt and chugging bitter espresso.
"Rachel, you know that it's only Utah that people get married so young."
"I know, Kirsten," I tell her, shoving ice from one side of the ice bin to the other with a grande scoop. "I'm trying to tell you that it makes me feel better that at least half of them have gotten fatter."
Kirsten laughs at me.
I had a dream, two nights ago that I I lived in Venice on a boat, and one afternoon got my arm chomped off by an alligator. But I knew it was a dream, as I was getting dragged behind a speedboat and the alligator was relieving me of one of my favorite extremities.
I don't wake up in fear as often.
Tonight, well, I feel a little better about the future. Maybe it is because the sun stays up later, yawning into the evening. Maybe it is a meeting I had with my professor about grad school, and it gave me hope for the months and years outside of my graduating in two weeks.
My parents give me Primetimes in my stocking each Christmas, because we traditionally only smoke on Christmas. But my father lit a pipe tonight so I dug up 3 Christmases worth of cherry Primetimes from my sock drawer and smoked a couple on our back porch.
I blew a few smoke rings into the here-and-there-breeze. I forgot that I knew how. I couldn't remember how I learned until I re-wound to four summers ago when I thought that I could still save the world.
I can't save the world.
I've learned everything since that summer in black and white. But what I know is, if an alligator chomps me up tomorrow, then that was God's will for me.
And that it was His best will for me.
"Oh my gosh, Rachel, that is not creepy at all," Kirsten scoffs while she scrubs the drains.
"You guys, this is really normal."
"OH MY GOSH," is the obligatory Roxanne response that I have come to know and count on in the harder moments of wearing a collared black shirt and chugging bitter espresso.
"Rachel, you know that it's only Utah that people get married so young."
"I know, Kirsten," I tell her, shoving ice from one side of the ice bin to the other with a grande scoop. "I'm trying to tell you that it makes me feel better that at least half of them have gotten fatter."
Kirsten laughs at me.
I had a dream, two nights ago that I I lived in Venice on a boat, and one afternoon got my arm chomped off by an alligator. But I knew it was a dream, as I was getting dragged behind a speedboat and the alligator was relieving me of one of my favorite extremities.
I don't wake up in fear as often.
Tonight, well, I feel a little better about the future. Maybe it is because the sun stays up later, yawning into the evening. Maybe it is a meeting I had with my professor about grad school, and it gave me hope for the months and years outside of my graduating in two weeks.
My parents give me Primetimes in my stocking each Christmas, because we traditionally only smoke on Christmas. But my father lit a pipe tonight so I dug up 3 Christmases worth of cherry Primetimes from my sock drawer and smoked a couple on our back porch.
I blew a few smoke rings into the here-and-there-breeze. I forgot that I knew how. I couldn't remember how I learned until I re-wound to four summers ago when I thought that I could still save the world.
I can't save the world.
I've learned everything since that summer in black and white. But what I know is, if an alligator chomps me up tomorrow, then that was God's will for me.
And that it was His best will for me.
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