Despertar

fluttermind

For lack of a better idea, I am unabashedly stealing Aaron's.

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I already feel like a narcissistic horse's ass for what I'm about to say. But. Is it my imagination, or did, like, everybodyandtheirsisterstealmyasteriskthing? It's my imagination, probably, and I am seriously in a constant state of resisting the temptation to buy into my own "trendsetter" hype, even though it's the very nucleus of this whole contest. And anyway, I don't hold a patent on the asterisk.

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Brangelina's lawyers already bought the corresponding domain names for Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, which, as much as I love those two, who do they think would want to steal the two most hotly anticipated and subsequently disappointing names ever?

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I already feel sorry for my future husband, who is going to have to endure the most brutal gauntlet ever when it comes time for "us" to name our children. Talk about unilateral.

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We're going to a wedding together in August. His cousin's. I was shocked that he asked and even more shocked that I didn't spaz out and betray my shock. Then I thought, maybe he doesn't think it's a big deal, maybe he doesn't see the implications of this the way you do. That's probably it, or he would have said something, issued some disclaimer or made a bigger deal about the lack thereof. But, parents? Dinner in a pretty dress? What the fuck am I going to wear, anyway? I have some weeks, still, to plan, but I'll be in San Antonio for half that time. Aiyah. You'd think it was my wedding.

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I haven't had sex in seven weeks. You probably couldn't fit two fingers in there, which makes me uncomfortable, knowing that. Tightness is a virtue, though. Right?

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Aaron referred to it, on the island, as "flirting with the fall," and now, whenever I'm doing that, I think of that. Ditto all that craziness with the palm tree, volcanoes, et cetera.

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Of al the reasons I'm sad about not letting my upgrade lapse, and losing all my everything but the big five, I'm saddest about losing that static item that was a compilation of all my chapters and Aaron's. Except that seeing them together like that, alternating, with no splash page or window-to-window buffer, was always kind of jarring for me. Although, then again, there was that one time I couldn't remember which of us wrote what, and neither could he.

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He's going to submit to no fewer than five journals this summer. I had a goal like that, at one point, for 2008 generally, but I think I'm pushing it back to 2010. And that's how it starts, how you look back and realize you postponed everything you meant to do before you stagnated. It's been a long time, though, since I wrote anything I considered worth polishing up. Probably too long. That thing, telling stories, used to be the only thing I ever thought of doing. It used to take up hours of my day. I could talk about fictional characters for hours; they took on lives of their own. That's how it happens. Real or not, you know who they are. You know when they're lying to you. When they're being honest, and when they aren't.

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I read a thing about diagnosing Asperger's, and, on the basis of the four main criteria, deemed myself mildly afflicted. Especially the pointless rituals part.

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During our all-staff conference call today, I kept myself awake by diagramming the family trees of every Sim I've ever created. When I ran out of names, I fell asleep with my head propped on my hand. Fortunately, so did Allison. Being as it was both of us, it became a hilarious office joke for us to brave together, rather than a really humiliating delinquency on my part. Even though it was really that, too.

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Everyone here is a huge nerd, though. I feel no shame when I do things like, for instance, listen to "Dragostea Din Tei" on repeat on my iPod for hours at a time. Because Mike has a Napoleon Dynamite doll at his desk and Ana has a fart machine that she sometimes spontaneously detonates when the room has been quiet too long. It would take a lot for me to be the least cool person here.

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Or anywhere, really. That's what I'm learning.

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I'm also learning that I suck at stream-of-consciousness writing, even when it's compartmentalized the way I like it. And on that note, I'm done.