fake plastic me

2009-04-06 5:38 p.m.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

* * * * * * * * * * *

I wish they had kept that in the script.

I suddenly got the urge to watch "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless" mind five minutes ago, and I'm waiting for Cox internet to start cooperating so I can get it off of surfthechannel.com. I tried to give Hulu a chance at Ryan's behest, but it was fail. Too many installations to deal with. Surfthechannel made me feel bad about life though, when it showed me that ESOTSM came out in 2003. Six years ago. Christ.

It honestly feels like last year, or the year before at least.

I've been having mild quarter-life crises as of late, and this does not help matters. Since Thursday night, I've realized that I am severely lacking in experience. It's never bothered me before, and it shouldn't right now. I'm not yet at that age where people start to think something is wrong with you... but I'm getting there. I actually think it's a prime time for me to make like a geisha and sell myself to the highest bidder. I can't get the right wording out, so it sounds like my life's ambition is to be a prostitute, but it's not that at all.

God, I don't know how to explain it.

We were all out by the pool today, and naturally there was the Inquisition. I'm unconvinced that it was anything other than random circumstance eased with lots of alcohol. Ariel is assuming feelings on his end, and I'm convinced not. I told them: I think it was partially curiousity, and partially conquest. Really, any boy who gets at me now would be lauded as some sort of hero. The One to Crack Cat.

It should be a coveted title.

At this point, I have to date either Sam Colburn or some young equivalent to be on an even playing field. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but no matter what my friends try to say and placate me with, the fact of the matter is, people do judge. Six years since I started thinking about love and I haven't gotten anywhere.

I'm a conquest. I'm a toy. I'm not real yet, and I hope it happens soon, because I'm starting to get shabby, but more importantly, discouraged.

back | forth