A Rant on Literature

Jodi Picoult is a coward. Jodi Picoult is a shallow, cagey, waffling slave of Hallmark. Jodi Picoult is not daring. Those who've read "My Sister's Keeper" know it to be emotional, heartbreaking, heavy. They also know that the ending comes from a magical land, where everything works out beautifully, and readers can wipe away a satisfied tear. "How tragic," they can cry, "makes you see the perfect beauty of the balance in life."

Jodi Picoult is a terrible author.

Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and the like, is not. His characters are not afraid, nor is he afraid of them. He kills them off. He plays with the idea of family and love, without being bound by rules of fairytale. He lets a tragic hero die, and be found by her retarded half brother, born of incest and sin, and be kissed not by Prince Charming, but a 50 year old hunter who left her for dead.

Life is not perfect. Life is like Gregory Maguire's world. Completely unrealistic.

Unraveling Pearls

There are always words on tongues. I have learned this, that if you keep them there, balancing long enough instead of letting them fall, you can swallow them back down, and let them fall back, deep into your belly, into yourself, where you can keep them, fashioning them like pearls.

Words and thoughts alone are wispy, hard to grasp. If you wait long enough, you can collect enough of these, bundle them up, press them together, and lock them away, hard little pearls gathered in your belly for nobody else to see. I apologize now to my pen pal, to whom uncountable letters have been scribbled, started, again and again, only to be lost. Everything I must say lies solid, and I've no idea how to unravel them.

There is someone who can. She can read in us what we cannot read in ourselves. Somehow, unbelievably, she can find the edge of a circle, and unravel all the knots and tangles until it's words again, and can be understood. She does the same with art and music, as though she can taste colors and touch harmonies, creating patterns never seen.

After school, we stand together outside, waiting to return home. Laughing, I tell her about my acceptance letter, filled with glitter and confetti. She asks if I'm going. Here, I pause, unable to describe all my reservations, the unnerving conformity, and the fear that I'll never fit in. I cannot word these things, so instead I reach up and unlock my chest. Pearls lie inside, fat, warped, and off-white. I pull them out, and hand them to her, before locking the door shut again. In her hands, they melt, and she understands.

"Don't worry," she soothes. "Look around. There's stereotypes and majorities everywhere you look. But for as many cliques there are that act the way they do, there's people like you and me."

Searching for Words to Describe

It was a bunch. no, a stack. no, not quite. I can almost taste the word I want. It needs to sound disheveled, thrown together. Like a smash of paper. But smash isn't an adjective.

Thesaurus. Agglomeration, assemblage, assortment, band, batch, bevy, blob, bouquet, bundle, caboodle... caboodle?

Dictionary. The lot, pack, or crowd. I have no understanding of the whole caboodle.

Dear Anonymous 3

"Even your response to those comments was so full of so self indulging, you didn't even address the comment. You used large words to make someone else seem stupid, and that's simply insulting. Your posts about girls who straighten their hair and wear makeup was just rude, we can be who we REALLY are with and without makeup. You are not this special gift to the world, I have nothing against you. Being young doesn't excuse ignorance. you're a respectable writer, some of your posts are very good. that being said some of them are very wrong. you can have your opinion but its a seriously disturbed one. you actually judge people and who they are by how they appear. if i want to straighten my hair, its because i like the way it looks to ME. i do it FOR MYSELF. not because of insecurity. and saying "no offense" usually means what you're saying is indeed offensive. you're very cocky and self righteous in you're writing and probably in general. i guess youre just very narrow minded and really have no idea how rude an awakening you are going to recieve when you enter the real world. so i seriously wish you a good luck with that. " -Anonymous

First off, I did address your comment. I admitted I'm self centered, and often ignorant. I'm not trying to make anyone else appear stupid, nor am I trying to use big words. I like language, and the flow of it, again, it's a reason for writing. I'm not any gift to the world, a blog is like an open diary, I publish posts I want to share, and people can read them if they feel so inclined.
I disagree about youth not excusing ignorance. You cannot expect someone young to understand how the world works. Knowledge and understanding come with experience. I have not yet experienced the world.
Recognition, was written about a Facebook group, which ended with "you wouldn't recognize us." I only meant it to be applicable to people who weren't recognized, who didn't know who they were. I never claimed that someone couldn't be recognized if they looked alike, because I don't believe that. The only point I meant to make was that you had to know yourself before anyone else recognized you. I never claimed or even meant to imply that hair irons or makeup was bad, only if someone uses it just try try to fit in, as is anything. They were simply examples, and I didn't mean to put much emphasis on them. By straightening your hair because it looks good to YOU, and you do it for YOURSELF, you're not doing it because of insecurity, I agree. I've straightened my hair, it's fun. I didn't judge anybody by how they looked, and I never said that people who straighten their hair conform by any means.
Saying "no offense" doesn't guarantee a statement to be offensive, only controversial, as many things are.
I don't mean to be cocky or self righteous and I don't believe myself to be such in real life, but I guess you'd have to ask someone else to be the judge of that. I try not to be narrow minded, and I don't think I am. Narrow minded would be deleting your comments, and believing myself to be right. I don't think I'm right. I think I'm wrong on a lot of things. But even if my opinion is seriously disturbed, I'm very glad I have one.
I was never under the impression that the real world would play by my rules. I understand, at least, that life doesn't work like that. But I don't think I'm in for a rude awakening. Rude awakenings come to those that are oblivious, and I expect challenge. I'm terrified of life, of people, of human nature, of every adventure life has in store. But in every terror, there's a secret excitement. Aren't you excited? Aren't you scared? It's unpredictable, and that's the fun of it. It's brought you and I into a debate.
I want you to know that I've got nothing against you either, I very much respect you as a debater, you have opinions and manage to back them up. For that, thank you. As always,
Write back?

Lost and Found

The wheels dip in and out of the bumps, trying to throw the bike off track, and I feel the shock of each landing in my legs, unaccustomed to the uneven terrain. I catch myself with just enough balance, and manage to stand up on the pedals with loose knees, bouncing with the bumps. The trees suddenly open up, and I hit the brakes too hard, the back wheel skids to the side. My partner slides up beside me, and we stare open-mouthed at the towering trees above. The entire scene is pulsing with life and detail and promise.

"Know where we are?" she asks, panting slightly. Her hair has been untied, and falls around her face, tangled and damp.

"Sort of."

There is nothing like getting lost to find yourself. Driving, on roads, with houses, everywhere goes somewhere, and everywhere ends, but out here, it's unlimited. It takes everything you know and rips it open in a harsh perspective.

Something locked deep inside of me breaks, and bubbles up and bursts out, and I laugh. It's loud and sharp against the softer sounds, but the ring seems to blend to something in the hum that was already there. Here, there are only trailhead markers to suggest that someone else might've been there once, if ever, written without much shape or personality, and quickly forgotten.

Later, we break out of the maze, and I stop on the rocky path. One of the stones catches my eye. It's white, and shiny. Without thinking, I scoop it up and hold it to the setting sun. The light seems to set it on fire. It seems clear and cloudy at the same time, a doorway, a passage to another world. One small stone, on the borderline between civilization and a great escape.

Home again, I place the white stone in the bottom of an empty fishbowl. It sits at the bottom, and the rest of the bowl seems vastly empty, waiting to be filled up, with trinkets, memories, doorways, stories.

On Homosexuality

On the drive home, my mother tells me of the day's class. In a lecture on homosexuality, she told a story of my brothers friend, a young boy, sweet and bright, who had informed her a few days earlier that he "enjoyed cooking as well" and his favorite dish to make was "chicken cordon bleu" a lovely French dish with cheese, ham, and chicken, a response from which we all got a kick, and a story which refutes the belief that interest in something effeminate, like cooking, defines sexuality. There was laughter. The lecture moved on, and then stopped abruptly when a hand stole up into the air.

"Excuse me," a brassy voice rang out. The girl stood up. "Aren't you scared that gay boy is gonna turn your son gay? Why would you ever let your son be friends with him?"

At this point in the retelling, I interrupt, shocked. "What'd you say?"

Secretly, I expect an explosion. This boy, an absolute angel, is one of my favorite people, and even trying to begin imagining a reality in which he was forbidden to befriend my little brother because of his interest in cooking is horrifying.

We turn onto our street, nearly home. "I'm glad she asked," she admits, "It's better to ask and learn, so others can hear, instead of just thinking it to yourself. I told her that whether he or my son were gay was already decided from the second they were born, that homosexuality isn't a catching disease, and that even if my son were gay, I'd love him just as much."

I swell a little bit, proud. Bit by bit, question by question, answer by answer. The world becomes a better place.

Dear Anonymous 2

"YOUR IGNORANCE AND INACCURACY IS STAMMERING. YOU DONT KNOW OTHER PEOPLE WELL ENOUGH TO JUDGE THEIR REASONS FOR DRESSING AND LOOKING HOW THEY LOOK. HOW DARE YOU." -Anonymous, on Recognition.

"Youre a hypocrite and your posts are annoyingly ignorant. grow up." - Anonymous, on Insanity

Anonymous, first of all, you're mostly right. Though, I'm not quite a hypocrite. A hypocrite pretends to have, or believe, or do, or not do something that their private life denies. I'm not lying about anything I do. Of course I'm ignorant, I'm young. Of course I'm inaccurate, I never claimed otherwise. Of course I'm biased. This is my blog, these are my thoughts. Thoughts are never facts. Believe it or not, I live a life in first person. I hear my thoughts, not anybody else's.

Secondly, I'm absolutely intrigued by who you are. There are those who can comment, leave mean, shallow, and incoherent responses on a whim and think nothing of it, comforted in the shadows of anonymity. But you're eloquent, and seem personally offended. I'm sorry, believe me, I am. Again, this is my website, my thoughts, no offense was meant.

Recognition wasn't a post meant to assume anything about anybody. "I pity the girls who don't get recognized. Who feel so pressured to cover up, just under the label of teenage girls, that nobody knows who they are." I stand by this. My opinions don't make me ignorant, nor inaccurate. Any girl may have any amount of reason for dressing any way they might choose, and I didn't attempt to give a reason for that, for something I don't understand. I meant only to try to explain the group as I was asked to do, to place myself in the equation.

I feel as though there's a glass slide, many, between different parts of the world, like a cover slip, for examination. And as much as people on one side are examined, so too are the others. And of course, the barrier. Don't you ever feel like you're more watching the rest of the world, terrified, and trying to figure out by god, how in the world you'll ever fit in there? That's how I feel. That's why I keep this blog.

Write back?

Insanity

He sits behind me, smugly folding his arms over his barrel chest. His arms and legs are both long and thick, a firm, sinewy stockiness, like weathered ropes or tree trunks, matched by the wide paddles of his hands. His face looks sculpted, balanced, sharp. Dark waves of hair spill onto his face, shocking against his eyes, a deep, pure, blue. They're calm, attractive, madly drawing, but so too did Lucifer wear dazzling gems.
His laugh, hypnotizing as the rest of him, rings out. I turn, half curious, half enticed. As soon as our eyes meet, the laughter is squeezed out of his face, like dirty water from a sponge. The sharp attractiveness of it all remains, now lined with distaste.

"Don't you say anything," he warns, with a sudden harshness.
"I didn't," I stammer, with a matching sudden confusion.
"Don't give me that look," he says.
Forcing a laugh, "I'm not allowed to look at you?"
We're caught in a dangerous tango of truth and jest, and nobody can guess where the next step will fall.
"No. Because you're f***ing crazy."
I laugh, and flip my hair over my shoulder as I turn back around, "And proud of it."

I lied. I'm not proud. And hes not joking.

Opinions

She snickers without trying to hide it, delighted. "Don't tell me you actually believe that."

I resist the urge to backpedal, to laugh it off and fall back in with the expected. Instead, my glare hardens. "I do."

Of course, there is no challenge. It's English class, a brainstorming of ideas, background knowledge for the novel we're reading. And it happens to be about Christianity. By some coincidence, everyone in the small group is Jewish. Except me. And though I'm not, by any means, a strict Christian, I'm offended.

She laughs again, tossing her long hair over her shoulder with a twitch of her neck, like a bird, nervously flickering. There is no reason behind her beliefs, and no knowledge in her challenge, just beaten stereotypes. "Jesus was Jewish," she smirks, and the rest of the group giggles agreement, "Christianity doesn't even make sense." She speaks like this, rhythmic emphasis oh her words, as though her voice is a drum she's beating to entice followers.

"It's about forgiveness," I begin, but I'm forced to give up. Class is over, and they've already decided I'm insane. I simmer silently, knowing that even if I spoke, I could not be heard over the bandwagon anyway.

Blank CD

I stare at the ceiling, having melted into the furniture, a crumpled sheet thrown haphazardly across the foot of the bed. Exiguous light leaks through the cracks in the shaded windows, skipping over the pea plants crawling from a line of pots on the sill, mountainous stacks of books, an overturned laundry basket spewing its textile bowels across the floor. A wooden mannequin casts strange shadows. Abandoned pencils and widowed socks huddle between the boxes of sealed history in a hidden society in the darkness beneath the bed.

All of this lies in silence, a thick silence of forgotten things, of late afternoon, of lifelessness. Underneath, however, is a violent storm of emotions, torn with conflict and unhappiness. Eventually, it rises to the surface, and I slowly become alive again, pulling myself up, and staring in bewilderment at the vast, skeleton-littered surroundings. I have no idea how it accumulated, or why. Mentally, physically, I begin clearing, gathering, fixing.

I find myself standing in the center of the room, more human then bed sheet now, with a blank CD in my hand, extracted from a mess of chaos. Turning it, I can catch glimpses of my confusion in its silvery surface, but it shows no writing, no labels. Drawn by the unknown, I feed it into the stereo. The blue display lights up. One track, 3 minutes, 54 seconds. Play.

Instantly, sunshine, brassy and alive, spills out. Drums, guitar, happiness. The skeletons cease to be, as life pours out, and fills everything in the room. The light seeps into everything, like a dusting that I can touch, that I can walk on. And I am human again.