Binge and Purge

My phone holds exactly 301 text messages.  Once I get there, I have to start deleting (something that is wholesomely annoying when the limit is reached in the middle of a conversation).

Being someone who hordes information, I have been stockpiling text messages over the past eight months (or however long I've had this phone), keeping the ones that were particularly salacious, interesting, insulting, funny, and/or marked an occasion I wanted to remember.  By this morning, the number of messages I didn't want to delete had pushed past 200, making texting conversations in the present a little cumbersome.

So I did what I should have done long ago (long before so many other messages I would have kept were lost to the delete function in a panic to open up more room) and typed them all up in Word.  All 200 of them.  Complete with commentary.  Categorized by texter.

I hear myself say things sometimes like, "[So and so] was stupid to do that.  I write everything down!"  Or, "Does [so and so] not realize that I'm recording all of this?!"  And when I say those things, I'm pretty sure I come off as a vindictive bitch, especially to people who don't know me.  I have a tendency to blurt out the truth even when I shouldn't, and when someone's behavior is particularly bizarre, my first instinct seems to be to want to warn that person that there's a fairly high likelihood that that behavior will wind up in written form somewhere.

But I never, ever write things down for the purpose of revenge.  (If I did, I would have published the book about Ireland long, long ago...)  I write things down because human memory is irreparably fallible, and I write things down because one of the few things I enjoy as much as recording the present is reading about the past. 

It's amazing the insight that can come from reading something, written without the warping influence of time, weeks or months (or years) after the emotion of the moment has faded away.

I write things down because in striving to learn from my past mistakes, every once in a while I need to be reminded of what those mistakes were.  Because if I don't reflect on them - particularly the little ones that are easy to forget - I'll lose the lesson.  This is nothing unique to me; much of the American public, for instance, seems to have forgotten the president we had just four years ago, and many are ready again to support his failed policies.  If we do this collectively all the time, of course it makes sense that we do it on an individual level also. 

When I read through those texts today, what I realized was that I needed reminding about the mistakes I've made in the past eight months.  I've made so many of them.  Enough that it was hard for me to keep up with them all, and thus it's no wonder a few of them slipped through the cracks. 

I keep telling everyone I'm writing all of this Breakaway stuff down, but it's not because I have any plans to eviscerate anyone in literature.  I do sincerely hope to one day have the story arc I need to write a book that is enjoyable to the general public, but on a much more personal level, I write about Breakaway because I write about everything.  In that particular group, not all of my experiences have been good, and it's sometimes so hard to remember why people pissed me off, and so easy to slip back into what's comfortable and familiar rather than to make the changes necessary in my relationships with those who have done things to make me uncomfortable. 

I feel strangely lighter now that my text count is back to zero.  It's as if a physical weight has been lifted.  And maybe the biggest lesson that came from today's exercise is that my social circle could probably use the same level of trimming that my phone inbox just got...

And...I'm...BACK IN THE GAME.

This weekend, your esteemed author made a minor comeback of sorts when she had the following conversation with a bartender:

Becky:  "I'll have what Kid Rock drinks."

Bartender:  "You wouldn't like what he drinks." 

Becky (choosing to tactfully overlook the fact that this bartender has gravely mistaken her for both a lightweight and a pussy):  "I'll bet I'd drink it anyway.  But that's okay.  I'll have what Nathan drinks."

Bartender:  "Coming right up."

Who is Nathan?  I can't tell you or I'd have to kill you.  But let's just say I was hobnobbing in some exclusive company over the weekend and that, along with my recent re-reading of some book I wrote one time, has reminded me that I used to do this sort of thing all the time and I'm not quite sure why I ever stopped.

So well played, Becky, on living it up a little.  Goal for next time:  have that drink with Nathan himself...

I have been laughing about this for DAYS.

My friend Melissa and I have a tradition of sending pictures to each other on our birthdays in which we've Photoshopped the other into ridiculous pop-culture-themed situations.  Melissa's crop for my thirtieth birthday (which was Sunday) is below.

They all made me laugh out loud (Melissa outdid herself this year)...but the last one.  MY GOD, THE LAST ONE.  I cannot.  Stop.  Laughing.  About me as Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.  Dear.  Freaking.  LORD. 

WHY does my face fit so well on the head of tiny male child?!  Christ, that is hysterical.

It was a very good birthday, by the way.  Much superior to last year...  When/if I get the chance, I might just write about it. :)

Flashback: The Gynecology Blog

From MySpace, circa early 2010:

Today, I had my yearly gynecological exam. 

It is one of the true treasures of being a woman to experience this special doctor's visit.  Here, I offer you the opportunity to share in my joy as I recreate my appointment:

The waiting room at the gynecologist is always an exciting place because it is full of women who are acting like they are totally okay with the fact that within a matter of minutes, they will be asked to strip naked and allow a relative stranger stick metal instruments inside of them.  Everyone just sits around and reads parenting magazines and pretends that being in this place is not weird at all.

Once called back, your first stop is the bathroom where you are given a cup to "void" into.  The nurse today was telling all of the other women to go "if [they] could."  But she didn't say that to me.  She said, "Urinate into this cup."  Maybe she could tell I had to pee anyway ('cause I did; I drank a lot of water beforehand to ensure my ability to "void"). 

In the bathroom, there is a box of disinfectant moist towelettes which probably contain exactly the kinds of chemicals that gives all of us cancer all of the time.  On the door is a very specific set of instructions regarding what to do with these moist towelettes.  You are to use exactly three of them, and you are to disinfect yourself in precisely the manner instructed over the course of 7 descriptive steps.

Once you leave the bathroom, you are back to another waiting room, where you sit and read more parenting magazines until another nurse comes and takes you back to the exam room.  She checks the usual stuff...weight, blood pressure, family history of diseases, that sort of thing.  My nurse also complimented me on "staying out of the sun," and I thought she was being facetious because after laboring over the fire most of Monday, I am quite sunburned, and even thought before I left the house today, 'Wow, due to the glowing redness of my face, I look like total shit."  But apparently she was being serious.  (I would love to hear what she'd say to me if she saw me looking my usual deathly pallor of pale.)

Then the nurse leaves and you have to take off all of your clothes.  Sometimes I rebel and leave my socks on.  I did so today.  You have to undress quickly, though, because at my office at least, the doctor comes in almost immediately.

And then you sit there wearing nothing but an open-fronted robe while the doctor chats about any changes in your medical history since last year.  "Are you having any problems?" and "Have you changed medications?" and that sort of thing.  She (my doctor is a woman) tells you to lay back and while checking to make sure you aren't about to die of breast cancer, she's just talking to you.  Normal conversation.  Like you aren't completely naked and spread out on an exam table while a woman you see once a year is feeling you up.

Last year, my doctor and I talked about running, and she must have written herself a note somewhere because this year, she jumped right into questioning me about what races I'd run recently.  My doctor is very good about trying to distract you from what's happening, but there's really no distracting from what's next, which is that she tells you to scoot down and put your feet in the stirrups while she shines a light up in you and hits the call button for the nurse to come back in.  Now it's a party in the exam room because all three of you are talking about running and how great certain races are and OH!  WHAT WAS THAT?

THAT was the doctor spreading you open and snipping off a piece of your cervix.  It feels about as comfortable as it sounds. 

Then the doctor does an internal exam to make sure your reproductive system hasn't fallen apart in the last year and she's still talking about running.  Next thing you know, the nurse is out of there, the doctor's telling you to get dressed, and everyone is all smiles saying they'll see you next year.

And if that experience doesn't just warm the cockles of your heart, then surely it will give you a warm glow to learn that my insurance doesn't really pay for my yearly exam (or for anything for that matter), so that 20 minutes of my life costs me around $400.

God bless America.

I swear I'm going to work on my book...

...but just one more thing!

I've been dealing with some negative emotional energy the past week or so, partly because I had kind of a rough start to the new year and partly because it's been distressingly dark lately.  Not rainy, just dark, in the miserable way that winter can be.  This afternoon, though, it finally started raining.

There's something so inherently soothing about the sound of rain.  I have the window in my bedroom propped open (it's almost 60 degrees outside) and I was zoning out a few minutes ago, just listening.  For half a second, with the rain and window open, I could almost believe it was spring...

And it reminded me of that time when I was living in Ireland and deep in the middle of a horrifically cold and dreary February afternoon, I paused in my bedroom, heard a wonderfully welcome sound, and went squealing through the house, "I can hear frogs!  Spring is coming!"

And all of my housemates converged in my room, where I threw open the window and then hushed everyone and told them to "Listen!"  And we all listened.

But it wasn't frogs I was hearing. 

It was a car alarm.

Winter is terrible.

Miraculously, My Car Passed Inspection

16-year-old Me's license pic.  HAHAHAAAAA!

I'm not sure how that happened, but I'm not going to question it.  Dear old Penny Lane had to be inspected for the very first time in her entire life today, what with my tags needing renewal and my parents no longer occupying a Bartlett residence to act as my legal address, thus leading me to officially change my address.  As of today, my license matches my residence for the first time in nearly five and a half years:  I legally and unmistakably live in Memphis, Tennessee.

Have you noticed that this is the third entry in three days?  Yeah.  I'm supposed to be cracking down on my book.  This is what I'm doing with myself instead.  Blogging.

And also going through my computer and finding a surprising (EQUALS AWESOME) folder stuffed full of blog entries that I wrote, like, two or three years ago, but never published.  I thought now might be a good time to share one quote from each of these entries, without any context, purely because about one quote's worth is all these entries are worth.

THE WISDOM OF BECKY('s unpublished blog entries from two or three years ago)

"I just have this book, and I think it's good, and I think a lot of people would like it if they read it.  And now I find out that that's actually the part of it all that doesn't mean anything."

*****

"Remember that pets neither know nor care how much you pay to feed them, so it's rather useless to try to impress them."

*****

"Look, Facebook, you're not fucking Lady Gaga.  There is no functional reason for you to look completely different every time I see you. "

*****

"In high school, my friends had this endearingly annoying habit of choosing a future occupation for me.  Architect, textbook writer, doctor, lawyer...you name it, someone thought I should be it.  No two people ever chose the same job for me.  I knew even at that point that I had no interest in what was being recommended, but I was definitely fascinated by the fact that so many people thought they had the answer to what I should do with my life.  It's just not a conversation I could imagine having in reverse, and I wondered what it was about me that prompted so many to offer their advice."

*****

"Oh my God, 28. 

Nine months from now, I will have lived as long as he had when he died. 

Fuck.  I have done nothing with my life.

HEATH.  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?  You've been gone for TWO YEARS and you're STILL DEPRESSING ME ON MY BIRTHDAY."

*****

"Tragically, Jake's mental facilities seem to be regressing even faster than his physical stature.  Watch below as he struggles to remove a stuffed octopus from his own head, exhibiting motor skills that child psychologists find reminiscent of those in kindergardeners."

*****

"I immediately flashed back to Kathryn standing in our Bellingrath dorm room sophomore year of college saying, 'I just don't get you sometimes.'  I don't remember what prompted her to say it.  I wasn’t offended.  I long ago stopped trying to predict my own reactions to things so I can only imagine how frustrating I must be to other people.

*****

"I once talked to a therapist who, upon finding out I give both sides of my brain relatively equal workouts, said to me, 'It must be so hard being you.  I'll bet you're misunderstood all the time.'  (I don't think it's any more or less hard to be me than it is to be anyone else.)"

*****

"I am a perpetual enigma to myself.  And the biggest mystery is why anyone pays attention to me."

 *****

"Wine in a box is cheaper and gets you just as drunk."

Regarding The Hunger Games Trilogy

Horrifically, brutally violent.  Depressing.  Grim.  Dark.  Harsh.  Agonizing.  That is how I would describe the events in Mockingjay, the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy.

I wanted to read these books because of their wild popularity, and while I found the first book surprisingly (shockingly) vicious (it is, after all, a book about adolescents killing each other for the entertainment of a television audience), it was readable and had just enough of a hint of rebellion at the end to border on an optimistic outcome.

The second book borrowed the love triangle aspect of Twilight (but did it better) and followed through with the apocalypse/Chosen One theme of Harry Potter (right down to the fabricated vocabulary).  Together, the first two books set up a world in the distant future in which what remains of humanity is under the tight control of a central and all-powerful government, and where a privileged few live lavish lives at the expense of the rest of the human population.

The third book, then, gives us our epic conclusion.  It is, of course, a book about the war that will decide the fate of our characters.  And while I'm going to bypass specifics in the interest of remaining spoiler-free, I would like to say this:

War is awful.  People do terrible things to each other during even the best of times, and with the fear of death ever present in a war zone, the human capacity for torture and depravity increases exponentially.  Man, like any organism, yearns above all for survival.  These are truths that define us, for it is our comprehension of them that often signals our maturity.

I'm just not sure I wanted these to be the thoughts that I walked away with after reading a futuristic young adult novel.

Nor am I sure that I blistered my way through Mockingjay in a matter of days because it was truly that compelling.  It's possible that, much like the characters' thoughts on the horror of their daily lives, I kinda just wanted it to be over...

Anyone else read this series?  Thoughts?

ACTUAL AARON CARTER NEWS (plus a Quoteboard entry and a somewhat-related commentary on Ed Sullivan)

For the Quoteboard, here is an ACTUAL TEXT from my ACTUAL BROTHER:

"Did you see that Aaron Carter is on that new cooking show?  Also, is he gay?"

Why no, John, I had not seen that Aaron Carter was on that new cooking show because that would require me to not only be aware of what's on television these days, but to be aware of what cooking shows are on television these days, and that's about as likely as me being aware of what sports season it is.

But thanks to The Google, I have now seen what it was John was referring to and, um, yes, I think it's possible that Aaron Carter is gay.

(God, really, you don't have to watch this video.  When I think of the pain I inflicted on myself by sitting through this four-minute-twenty-five-second recap, I am physically unable to stop myself from twitching in a manner indicative of severe repulsion over what psychological torment must have been wrought on anyone who, for whatever reason [God help them], sat through this entire show.  Peace be with you, gentle souls!)

(But if you can stomach watching at least a little of it, then you can see why Aaron C's sexuality is in question.  You can also see why it is that I really don't watch television.)

(Literally, at about thirty seconds in, when one of the judges or whatever tells Aaron to stop dancing and then winks at him as if to say "for the love of Christ stop ruining what's left of your non-existent-to-begin-with career; really we're here to help you," I want to cry, such is my abject horror at what I'm witnessing.)

Um, so anyway, yeah.  Our first ACTUAL AARON CARTER NEWS of 2012 is not so much that he might be gay (would this shock any of us? I mean, really?), but that he's just an absolutely awful cook[ing show contestant].

And tragically, my friends, that sort of thing is what passes for entertainment in 21st century America.

Thinking of this, as I was cooking my own dinner tonight ("cooking" is such a lie here...I put three frozen waffles in my toaster oven), I put in a DVD of the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964.  The DVD has the entire episode, with all the other acts and even the original advertisements in tact.

The Beatles continue to astound me, as their timelessness defies all rationality.  They are as riveting today as they were nearly fifty years ago.

The rest of the entertainment Ed had that night?  Made me think that as bad as I thought Aaron Carter on a cooking show was...it actually really was that bad, and what used to pass as entertainment on television was equally terrible, just in a different way.

Even when there were only three channels, most of what was out there was just crap...

AHHHHAHAHAHAAA!!!!

Literally, this is what just happened in my life...

I ran across (randomly!) a photograph of someone I had a crush on many, many years ago, which (randomly!) happened to be taken by someone I recently met.

I looked up the photographer on Facebook.  Found the former crush on his friends list.  Scoped out the former crush's profile.

LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED.  Because seriously, Becky.  COME ON.  This dude was lucky you ever looked twice in his direction.

Searched HIS friends list for the former roommate who was friends with the crush first and said she didn't like him...but totally slept with him THE VERY NIGHT she realized that I had a crush on him, solely because she was a bitch.  (Literally, I shed actual tears over this when it happened.) 

LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED.  Because the roommate looks like she's 180 years old now and why on EARTH did I ever think this person was "competition"?

Went back to the former crush's friends list.  Found ANOTHER crush I had completely forgotten about.  Noted that he is still uncomfortably attractive but whatever because he appears to be illiterate.

Used HIS friends list to find a long-lost sort-of friend (much younger than me) who had so much potential and charisma but who was always more interested in the next boy than maximizing her talents.  Discovered she has spawned, changed her last name, and is doing absolutely nothing, so hello, totally called that one...

Went back to first crush's friends list to find another long-lost roommate.  Discovered I still don't give a fuck.  Discovered I couldn't remember my final roommate's name so I couldn't look her up...

Realized that for as much as I complain, my life (and I, myself) may be a little bit awesome.

Oh, God.  The internet!  How did mankind LIVE before the ability to look up former tormentors and subsequently mock their patheticness?  Happy New Year to me...