I'm unravelling!

My closest friends are divided down the middle. There's the Meryl Streeps and the Steven Seagals.

The former lot is always experiencing some manner of dramatic upheaval on any given day. Life is all deep emotions and obscure lyrics. There will be drunk-calling exes, initiating internet flame wars, identifying with Julia Roberts in every role she's ever played and working up phone bills that hurt to even say out loud. Not ones to shy away from a good solid controversy, their currency is tears and pointed Tweets. This faction abides by a more...elastic..code and is all heart because "let's face it, the other way is dead boring."

For the latter, any heightened form of expression is just being unnecessary and they have practically no use for interjections. They believe in emotional decorum and underplaying everything. To them, life would be no less lived, if pointless hugging were to be removed once and for all. Hard to ruffle and harder to please, this is not the lot you want to call when you've done something incredibly stupid. Not because they'll judge you even though they probably will, but because they remain maddeningly even. Something that really makes the Meryl Streep camp lose their shit.

Organically, I'm a Steven Seagal. I'm awful at discussing issues, I'd rather let them ferment until one day someone goes "Hey you!" and I take a knife to their jugular. I loathe confrontations because they feel incredibly stupid and defensive and if there's one thing more uncomfortable than getting defensive, it's watching someone else squirm defensively.
In recent years though, due to prolonged exposure to some of my friends, I've found I can sometimes out-emote Meryl Streep. In The Hours. I get all wimpy and my nose twitches and moderate length impassioned speeches just, you know, ebb from me. On occasion I've had to physically stop myself from seeking out James Blunt on my iTunes.

It's really very confusing. It makes my inner Steven Seagal want to, without a single facial expression, place some lead between my eyes. But I'm afraid this will make Meryl Streep-me go into overdrive analysing my childhood and then it all gets very Wind Beneath My Wings.



Somehow I'd imagined I'd be having more complicated and important thoughts by the time I turned 24. Just goes to show, age is very distantly related to maturity.


* Ten meeelion dollahs to anyone who can tell me where the title of this post is from. Don't pretend you don't care!

When I have time, I wonder

Too many times in the past week I've gone 'I know! Exactly!' while watching Dexter. Commiserating with a vigilante serial killer. For someone who is so dead against even capital punishment, this is brand new.

Sometimes I wonder if, as a generation, we're all pansies or getting there quickly. I think the people I know alone keep the hand sanitizer industry afloat and not attending close family funerals because you 'cannot deal with it'? When did it get okay to indulge your neuroses so much?

This has been a bad month for trust. Sometimes all you can hear is the empty clanking sounds of long cherished concepts as they fall about your feet. Is it still trust if you know you won't be surprised if the things you're most afraid will happen, do?

Writing is not therapeutic for me anymore, it's become this anxious, regimented farce. I feel terribly close to just letting it all go to hell.

I haven't touched a cigarette in nearly two weeks now. Now that I'm a non-smoker, I want my testimony to be heard: This sucks. It's more sanitary, sure, but more suffocating too. Giving up was the easy bit. Making your peace with now being on the side of The Righteous Twats is harder.

How much do the choices of the people close to us, reflect on us? Think about it. If your boyfriend's last love made Fatal Attraction seem adorable and one of your closest friends adores someone who calls everyone 'babes' - what does that say about you? Are you the antidote? Or more frighteningly, do you share something in common with those people? Ever think, how could he/she have loved them and me?

Phase In, Phase Out

You know, the more I think about it, the more certain I get that I'm a Phase Person. A Phase Person is somebody whose personality is so far from well-rounded and wholesome that he/she can only ever be a passing phase in another person's life before the latter senses the need to detox. Clearly my self esteem levels are at full mast here. More seriously though, I don't think this a bad thing.

Longevity has never really been my strong point. I have noticed that most everything in life has a shelf life and pushed beyond its expiry date, a relationship, a yellow ointment for problems of the embarrassing kind and your favourite sitcom, will all eventually become a force of habit. In a word: tedious. And I'd just rather eat a washcloth.

Being a Phase Person has some very attractive perks - you don't have to give up smoking or swearing like a truck driver. All your worst habits like chewing your nails, your acute discomfort with brightly lit coffee shops and your endless reserves of self deprecating humour will seem cute/different/quirky. Some strange sexual caveat would probably bump you right up to 'exotic'.
For that short period of time, this is paradise for the kind of Twilight Zone person you are.

Until it all starts to go a bit runny.

One day your Phasees wake up and realise you are a very dysfunctional person indeed. Your obsession with toiletries, all in various nauseating floral scents, are the cause of their headaches. Your deep interest in their mothers' maiden names unsettles them slightly, and can they ever really trust someone who doesn't care for ice-cream? Don't even get them started on your tendency for having your few meaningful conversations with your bilingual, fruitcake of a dog.

From there it's only a matter of time before you become the star of their 'This one time...' stories which will most likely end in '...and then I met my wife/ turned to drugs/ found Jesus."

That's my least favourite part about being a Phase Person. It just never lasts.

Dating question.

Is the right person for you the one who puts up with you inspite of your idiosyncrasies, or because of them?

I have found the latter to be true for myself. I am one of those 'love is blind and loins are blurry' kind of people. If I like somebody, every 'do want' and 'don't want' checklist goes through the mind's paper shredder. I'll put up with pisspoor attitude, terrible pronunciations, various psychological complexes and barely satisfactory hygiene. Once I even kissed a guy right after he told me he beat his dog.

Sounds a mite tragic, yeah. Usually I am really very wise. Wise beyond my years. I'm like where the wisdom's at, usually. And granted my 'I wuvz youu no matter what' tendency has got me wading through piles of emotional excrement on more than one occasion but I can't imagine it any other way, you know?

I love the feeling that I could listen to someone ramble endlessly without once experiencing the need to roll my eyes, stifle a yawn or worst, cut 'im short. That I'd happily laugh at an awful joke just because it gets him all aflutter to tell it. That I'd pretend his keen interest in ferrets doesn't concern me slightly. In fact, I think some sort of weird habit involving coffee cup Feng Shui and an extensive collection of something totally useless would probably turn me on (Understanding a little more about why I loved As Good As It Gets so much). It's the nitty gritties that noone on superficial interaction with him could possibly know of. It's those little things I know about because I have the privilege of being this close to him, that make all the difference to me.

This 'staying with someone inspite of their shortcomings' business is all very charitable but it just sounds like a big ol' bag of Settling. I you don't love it, it's going to always be there, on the edge of your consciousness, messing with your confidence every time one of his 'shortcomings' surfaces. Too much trouble, if you ask me.


Note: All of this profundity is only valid until such a time as he stays a gem. All bets are off in the events of adultery, lie-telling and overall douchebaggery.

Habitat

You told me my silence unnerved you the first time we met. That for a stranger you'd met only moments ago, I stared so far into your eyes, it was as though I was looking for what was behind them. We laughed about it later but I never stopped staring. Every day I looked at you like I'd never seen you before. You're the only stranger I've known for so many years.

And when you lie, it makes me smile. Because I know what you'll do before you do it. You'll talk faster, louder and you'll rub your right eye with your index finger and say my name too many times. And I'll keep staring at you nodding ever so slightly, letting you believe I believe you. Because I've come to enjoy the nuances of this charade. It's like we're in a movie scene, you're a much younger, much better looking Michael Douglas. And I never leave a performance before the very end.

You're not one to disappoint either.

Midway through the routine you'll realise you're being fidgety and slow down consciously. Except I should tell you you slow down just a touch too much. Don't enunciate so much, stare into my eyes with conviction for 1 second, not 3, and don't grip the table's edge so hard. That's it, you're doing good. Go on.

Tell me your life made little sense before me, tell me your loneliness only left when I walked into that room all those years ago. Now pause to let out a little laugh like you're remembering it - my blue dress, the way my hair flopped across my forehead, how you noticed the scar on my knee. You'd never seen anything lovelier, haha, I know. Not a word out of place. Have you got all of this written down somewhere? Because that would be too much, even for you.

I wish you'd hurry though, I feel slightly bored and I want to get back to my book. Come sit by me, hold my hand gently and pat it softly with your other hand. Pull me closer and throw your arms around me. Give me that reassuring hug and kiss the top of my head. I lov...that's right... I love you, yeah say it. So much? You love me so much? Well, that's new. Improv. Brava! Now collect me to your chest and we'll stare at the tailor's across the street, as he loses himself to the rhythm of his Singer machine.