The Thursday I Took Out My Earrings and Made Lisa Cry

Thursday, October 14th marked the first time I did not go with Lisa to the tattoo parlor. That day, while Lisa was busy getting her fifth diamond-colored stud shot into her left ear, I was busy taking all of mine out for good. The decision had been a long time coming, but she didn’t know that because I hadn’t told her. There were a lot of things I had’t been telling her lately. Like how scared I was about liking Sean, or that I wanted to stop wearing my lip rings…all my piercings in fact, or that I didn’t actually want to be like her anymore.

“Hey I’ve been feeling like crap lately, let’s going to Zee’s today to get another stud,” Lisa had said that morning in her usual, half-apathetic tone. It took her awhile to get the whole sentence out. She was straightening her already stick-straight hair into razorsharp bits that hung across her face and she apparently found it most natural to talk between passes of the superheated ceramic plates. She made eye contact with me through the mirror while I sat lazily on the bed that neither of us had thought to make for weeks. I was fingering a few old pairs of fishnet leggings Lisa had given me last year for my birthday. I wasn’t sure if I should wear them under my jeans today so they’d show through the holes. I usually did, but I thought that maybe these too would need to go.

“We’ve both got seven each….just in our ears,. We might want to take it easy for awhile?” I half-asked her, trying to soften my impending statement.
“What?” Lisa almost laughed. “When has that ever mattered?”

I didn’t answer and kept thinking about whether or not I should wear the leggings. She raised her eyebrows slightly in surprise, giving her face an even more superior vibe than normal. My phone buzzed and I turned my head around just in time to see a dirty, silver Toyota pull up, the type that probably wouldn’t have looked new even ten years ago. I tossed the leggings back in my drawer, I’d made up my mind about them, grabbed a faded green sweatshirt instead and started towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Lisa asked, her tone was stern, but her eyes softened for a moment, a look Lydia knew meant she had been taken off guard.
“Sean just drove up.”
“And…?”
“And?” I didn’t want to say straight out that I wasn’t going to go with her and was going to hang out with my own friends instead, so I tried for the door again. Lisa’s face hardened and she quickly stepped in with the straightening iron in hand. I relented.
“And we’re picking up Tawney and going to an animal shelter,” I said so fast I could hardly keep my tongue straight. Monday morning I had held my ground in an argument and the burns on my arm still hurt. Morning arguments are always the most dangerous.
“You’re freakin’ kidding me. You’re ditchin’ on Zee’s to go look at a bunch of diseased dogs with your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, and we’re getting kittens.”
“Oh, kittens. Well,” Lisa tossed her arms in the air. “What the hell is up with you Lydia! You never go partying anymore…and since when do you care about kittens!”

I shrugged. I wasn’t actually quite sure why I suddenly cared about kittens so much. We both stood there for a long time. I thought about how bad would it be for me to go with her. I could call Sean and tell him I got sick and just never let him and Tawney know I went. They’d hate me for going back on my promise, they were both so proud of my decision. But, they had made me promise that I’d stop getting piercings, not that I couldn’t go into the place, exactly. Then I could put this confrontation off with Lisa for a little bit longer. Maybe? My phone started ringing. Sean was calling. “I’ll be right there,” I said into the phone and quickly hung up.

Lisa rolled her eyes and let me though the door. I ran down our staircase and pulled that green sweathshirt on over my head. It wasn’t cold at all, but I couldn’t wear the types of clothes I usually wore when I saw him. When I’m around Lisa’s friends I don’t really care how much of me they see or what all they think of me. But somehow I didn’t want Sean to see me that way. I ran down the hall towards the door, pulling out every one of my piercings from my nose to my navel and stuffing them in my pocket. I’d gotten quite good at this so that at the top of the staircase I looked like I belonged with Lisa and her crowd and by the bottom I looked a bit more like…well, I’m not exactly sure what I looked more like. Just plain I guess. But this time, I was never going to put the earrings back in.

I stopped at the door and paused for bit. That was a bad idea, to let myself think. I grabbed an umbrella, I opened it and closed it, and opened it and closed it, and opened it and closed it until finally I could walk out the door. I ran across the driveway and hopped in the front seat. Sean told me I looked pretty. I didn’t say much back to that…what are girls supposed to say to that anyways? I never could figure it out. He said it again when he dropped me back off. Most boys would have tried to kiss me, but he wasn’t like that. Instead he just said, “You looked really pretty today Lydia. Thanks for helping me find Shia.” He meant the little grey kitten that sat in a crate in the backseat. I smiled and climbed out of the car clutching mine. I had named him Milo. I know Milo’s not that original of a name, but it seemed to suit him at the time so that’s what I decided on.

I watched Sean drive off and then walked into the house. I passed by the downstairs mirror and felt instinctively to reach into my pocket and start putting my piercings back in, but I knew better. Instead I started petting Milo to give my hands something to do. The door to our room was shut, so I knocked. A loud thud, probably from one of my books hitting the door, was all I heard. I slowly walked inside, still clutching Milo, and saw Lisa sitting on the couch with a new earring in her left ear, crying.

Buddy

I am going to begin posting my short stories that I write...it should be fun and it will make this blog more of a place to try out creative ideas, which I want it to become. So that should be fun...I start out with a much lighter-hearted one, most of my stories have dealt with harder subject matter. I was getting tired of writing hard stories, so I tried my hand at a comedy...so please allow me to introduce my very first attempt at writing comdey...don't laugh (will, I mean laugh, but not like that ;) )

~The Author
Tawney had only met Buddy for 45 seconds and he ruined her life forever. She had been perched in her favorite eucalyptus tree for the last two hours trying to compose a poem. It had not been going well. This was evident because all the leaves from where she sat had been torn from the branches leaving a bald spot in the tree and leaf litter on the ground. It was also evidenced by the fact that in her notebook there were only three words and of those three, two had been crossed out.

Now Buddy was the sort of person who enjoyed seeing odd people doing odd things, thus when he saw the teenage girl with purple sunglasses sitting up in a bald spot of a tree, he enjoyed it. So, unknown to the girl-poet, he sat and watched her rip leaves and deliberately scratch out words while he ate an entire bag of potato chips. After a while, Buddy thought he would very much like to meet this girl. However, the potato chips he had just eaten happened to have been Lay’s Sour Cream and Onion potato chips and he knew that the only thing worse than onion breath, was onion powder breath. The skinny boy sat down rather dejected and pulled his plaid overshirt a bit closer to his chest. Then it occurred to him that she, given the height of the tree, would necessarily be rather far away from his mouth and so the chance of her smelling his breath was greatly reduced. This gave him much encouragement. He was going to meet the girl in the eucalyptus tree.

Meanwhile, Tawney had not an inkling of her impending doom. She had thought, being in a eucalyptus tree, to write a poem about koalas and she had finally started to get some momentum on it. Only, not very many words rhyme with koala, or Australia or even emu. This last one was only related by merit of it being an animal from Australia, a line of thinking she had taken up when a poem strictly about koalas had failed her. For lack of proper words to rhyme with Australian fauna, she decided to give up entirely.

She lept out of the tree and landed on directly in front of Buddy.

She was startled.

He also, felt surprised.

He scratched his head, but then extended his hand and almost said, “Hello, my name is Buddy” when he remembered his onion breath. He quickly resolved never to open his mouth, so he simply stood with his hand sticking out in the air. Tawney stared at the outstretched hand, she was not quite sure what to do with it. At first she thought about shaking it. This seemed the best option, but what if he was one of those sleezy boys her brother had told her about and as soon as she touched him, he would run away with her and she would never see her family again. She considered this for a while but then realized that this particular boy was likely to be beaten in a fistfight by a nine-year-old and she was much larger than a nine-year-old by at least three years, so her fear of that was offset. In fact, he was much more likely to be one of those street magicians who might electrocute her when she shook his hand, but since she was not on a street and much more thinking on the matter would lead to a truly awkward social situation, she decided to risk it.

She shook his hand.

It took Buddy a moment to shake her hand back, he was rather shocked she had actually done it after waiting so long to get around to it. He knew if he had might have spoken it could have made all of that go faster, but that was simply not an option. Not with a bag of onion powder flavored chips sitting on his breath.
Tawney let go and stood there, looking at the boy. She expected him to introduce himself now. She imagined that perhaps he had been a part of a community where words came after handshakes, or what sort of odd or strange things must have happened to him to keep him from being able to talk, never in her life imagining it to be something half so boring as a bag of Lay’s potato chips. Still no words were forthcoming.

“I’m Tawney,” she finally said.

He said nothing, but smiled. It was a cute smile. Maybe he was hiding some terrible secret, behind that smile and he was afraid to speak for fear it would all come tumbling out.

“Can you speak?” she asked.

He nodded, but never opened his mouth. Maybe he was a very young monk and had taken a vow of silence, and now his heart was breaking with love of her but he could never speak to her or marry her for monks also must be chaste. Chaste seemed like a strange word, she wrote it in her book.

Buddy saw her writing and wondered what she could be doing. He saw her write the word “chaste” and wondered if she was reminding herself of her virtues. Then he realized this was a very ridiculous and self-conceited thought and resolved to think it no more. He stood there a bit longer, hoping to hear her say one thing more before he left. She fulfilled this desire.

“What is your name?”

Here Buddy was in quite a bind. This comment required an answer and it required an answer that went beyond a simple head nod or shake. He knew what he was about to do next was mad, but he had no other option. He covered his mouth with his hand and said it much louder than he had intended to.

“Buddy!”

And then Buddy ran away, to quickly escape the shame of the breath that must surely have slipped between his fingers, clenched as tightly together as they were.
Tawney watched him run away. A thousand questions about Buddy raced through her mind. She was utterly intrigued by the boy she had met for only 45 seconds. Suddenly all sorts of words began to fly into her mind. Glasses. Scratching. Monk. Circus Performer. Lion Tamer. Lost Love. Secret Love. Forbidden Love. Runaway. Siberia. Spy. Lonely. Orphan. Hermit. Egypt. Ancient Pharoah. Second Life. Time Traveller. And many other words of even more extravagant meanings and lofty expectations entered and stuck in her mind. She wrote furiously all night and well into the next day and even then she felt she had only barely scratched the surface of this boy and all he was.

She had fallen in love with him, that much was certain. Not the romatic sort of love, but the obsessive sort of love where one cannot help but think about the person they love because they are intrigued and fascinated and thinking about them and their many possible lives has become a sort of fantasy, like a video game, but in the mind. And it completely takes over your life so that you never can have it back the way it was before this falling in love happened, and in some ways your life is forever ruined by a chance meeting. This was exactly what had happened to Tawney, and she knew she could never for the rest of her life stop being in love with Buddy.

With wit...

...my wit is marred.

Photo Contest

My Favorite Photo (I've Ever Taken) Brickfish

{aspirations}

Sometimes I thought I would like to be a trapeze artist. Soaring overhead and flipping through the air.

Then I remembered gravity.

Sometimes I thought I would like to be a trapeze artist in space.

{these thoughts courtesy of Lydia Brown {a character I am starting to develop}...she is also the "I" in the post below. I have recently discovered this girl...I'm trying to let her talk a lot so I can get to know her better and soon she'll have her own story. Not sure what yet...but she's starting to talk on her own now. Yesterday I discovered her name}

{the wind did it}

He was just sitting there, you know. Not really moving and I didn't think it was particularly my fault...I had just walked up on him. So I kinda just stood there and looked at him for a bit. Couldn't think of anything else to do. The clouds up in the sky were making weird shadows on the sidewalk, and it was kinda cold you know that fall cold that still has some sunshine but is basically deceiving because it is cold. I guess its the wind that does it. I don't mind too much because I love wearing jackets and sweaters and scarves and mittens...it kinda hides me to an extent, more than I could hide behind say one of those spaghetti strap tank tops. Don't get me wrong, I mean they're cute and all, but nothing you can pull up to your chin and pretend that you're hiding from everyone around you, you know. So I did that, pulled my green striped thrift store sweater up a little closer to my chin and decided that maybe he didn't like me staring so I decided to look up at the clouds. They were pretty, starting as these clumps of white, so dense they were almost grey. And then as the wind kept moving it [yes, it was the wind making it so cold, I'm sure of it] but as the wind kept moving it, it started to spread across and dissipate into the air until it disappeared entirely. As if it was promising to keep together to form some sort of shape in the sky that we little people down here could sit around and make guesses about, but then it laughs and disappears before anyone can say anything worth remembering. People are kinda like that. I don't know if I mean the not having time to say anything worthwhile or like the clouds. But people are like that. I'm not much of a cynic, but sometimes I just know these things. Its like a gut feeling but then I'm never sure what my gut feeling is about until after it happens which of course makes it pretty useless. Lots of things would be pretty neat if we knew what we were supposed to do with them beforehand. Kinda like with this guy...maybe running into him was some great opportunity to be compassionate or something like that but right now I was just staring, and not even at him anymore but at the clouds. So I looked back at him and realized that his gaze was still looking straight ahead, just like when I first happened across him in the allyway shortcut home from the grocery store. I had just bought some flour to make cookies for my little brother's birthday party, I didn't really want to but sometimes moms just give you that look and you know you'd better just get your butt out the door and buy the flour, which is why I didn't have any money left. Just a few pennies and I think giving him pennies would have been more of an insult. So if I had known, I woulda grabbed a few extra dollars, but here was my gut instincts failing me again. He still didn't change what way he was looking. I looked a bit closer and his body wasn't actually moving at all. He was stiff, kinda like a woman stuck in one of those bodices they used to wear way back when, except not breathing. So I pulled out my cell phone and called the police to let them know a dead man was sitting in the alleyway. Well not really sitting, but I didn't actually know what else to call it. I guess he was kinda propped up or something. He must have died from the cold, even though it was sunny. I think it was the wind that did it.

Prince Charming is an Alien

[revised after a conversation with Hilary Grunder who helped me figure this out a bit more]

Yes, that is what I said. Prince Charming is an alien. But before you think I am a chronic cynic, please let me explain.

In today's "someday my prince will come" culture, the idea placed in the heads of many young girls is that someday that perfect man will come and rescue them from their troubles. For years, many of us have lived lives of struggle where our value and worth are often called into question and we hide and change ourselves to simply survive. We live day by day hoping that someday everything will be different and this struggle will soon be over. That one day, we will be rescued from all of this.

That doesn't sound so bad...right? And so often our expectation is that a man will come and, just like in Cinderella, take us away from our evil stepmothers and finally show us what it is like to be loved and valued and we can live happily ever after. But when Prince Charming also has struggles...suddenly we feel un-rescued. And suddenly, everything seems the same and we are right back in the same situation we were before. So this idea of Prince Charming coming to rescue us leaves no room for him to be human. How completely unfair to the wonderful men who come into our lives! Which is why I think Prince Charming must be an alien. Now if that works for Cinderella, great. I personally say, no thank you.

I would much rather be in love with a man. A man who is human and will struggle, but a man who I can also stand beside as we seek to find the answers to our struggles in God. For that is the only person who can actually rescue us, both women and men. The only one who can come and take away our problems entirely and be completely steadfast and perfect for us to rely forever in the future is Jesus Christ. Our culture, subtly, tells us to place our hopes of salvation upon a romance and a Prince coming to rescue us. In one very beautiful way, romance is picture of salvation and men are, I think, a type of Christ figure to help us to understand the way that Christ loves us. But place the responsibility of salvation upon their shoulders is entirely unfair and only destructive to both sides. So first and foremost, we must hold onto Christ, the first lover of our souls and our only true Savior.

And yet, God did in fact give us romance for a reason. I seems that there is something inherent to romance that helps a person learn to love and be loved, and in some real sense men do rescue women. They show us what it is like to be loved in a tangible way, to have a friend to come alongside as we struggle not to fix it all but to help us seek the one who can fix it, to understand our value, and many many other things. They can be and are our heroes [I have personally experienced more healing and restoration because of the wonderful man God has placed in my life right now, than I have in a very very long time].

But all that to say...Prince Charming is an alien. Sorry Cinderella. It makes a great story though...I still think there is something beautiful about fairy tale romances, and we can actually learn a great deal from them, but they are not real, that is all.

{also, this song i think perfectly exemplifies what I am talking about. Not at all to bash on Taylor Swift, I actually love her music and I actually really like this song and think there actually quite a few good things to be gleaned from it, but it is also a very good reminder of how our culture is conditioning girls to look at men and I think it is very harmful to both genders...so listen to it if you like and see what I mean}




Also, another song that addresses the need to find the Lord as our Salvation. I'm not sure if they are Christian...but the song certainly can speak to this topic.

Show Me What Im Looking For - Carolina Liar