"Texans Do Wear Black........
Now turn your Iranian textbooks to page 367."
Yesterday I was reading a bit of a book entitled I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron, the same woman that gave us When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail and Bewitched. In the previous weeks my Mother has been reading comical parts of it to me and I thought I would pick it up and at least read the titles of the chapters. Chapter three is called Serial Monogamy: A Memoir, someone that I hold dear to my heart has described theirself as a serial monogamist so I had to read this chapter. It was about cooking and party planning with a brief overview on early drug culture. How this applies to serial monogamy I haven't the faintest clue. Moving out of chapter three and onto four there was a comment about how Texans never wear black. That is very untrue. Every woman in my family has made black a staple wardrobe colour (except for my cousin Judy, but she had a boob job in the early '80s so she falls under no precedent). For some reason I spent a great deal of my evening wondering where on earth this crazy woman got such an idea. Then I remembered that she is from New York. I don't think there are two other states that could have more misconstrued notions of one another than New York & Texas; except maybe California. Arkansas always gets a bad wrap, but I digress.
Actually this entire entry could be viewed a complete digression, but as lengthy as it appears it will be no one is going to read it anyway so I might as well babble until my fingers fall off. After my stint of mulling over that inane idea I decided going to bed would be in my best interest. I dreamt that I was back in high school trying to find my class on Iranian history. My teacher was Dante from Grandma's Boy and after he confirmed that black was worn by Texans and what page to turn to in our books, I tried to convince him to buy a octagon shaped five story house that could be turned into a dorm of sorts. The top floor was full of bookshelves, it was beautiful and perfect. So many of my dreams happen in school, I wonder if I'm trying to tell myself something.
Spending all this time on "lock down" I'm beginning to feel myself change. I realize that if I want to be a successful writer I need to not worry about what people want to read and write what I know. So here I start. Instead of contemplating what has keep my life stunted for so long I now understand that all my answers are the same. Me. Waiting will never get anyone anything but broken dreams. Will I feel this way tomorrow? Probably not. I'll probably be sitting on my bedroom floor, crying, tempted to post another "woes me" entry about how everyone is keeping me down and I'm ready to give up. And I just might post that entry or I may take a shower instead. Crying in the shower is best, there are no worries about where the snot goes when drips out of your nose. I've always been afraid. About what? Everything. My family has insisted for years that I'm brave, oh so very brave. I fought to live at the mere age of eight, I fought the coma, I won! Because I'm brave! Untrue. I woke up because I thought I heard a puppy barking, and a puppy was seemingly much more fun than that song I was hearing in the background.
My deal is that I talk a good game. I'd say that over the last couple of years I've started to actually become the person I say that I am. So maybe if I say I'm brave I'll actually become brave. I do know that eventually I will throw caution to the wind and travel the world. Hopefully with a gorgeous Dutchman by my side, or a gorgeous anyone by my side. I won't be here for the holidays, but I'll send exquisite presents from whatever foreign land I'm in at the time. After my adventures I'll finally be what I really want to be...cultured.