Bleeding and Pleading Pygmalion

All I can say of my endeavors of the heart up until this point is that they have been of completely unjust origin. This is not to brand myself with the marks of a villain, but to plead honest ignorance. I had always considered myself in the rankings of the utmost profound romantics when, in fact, I was but reveling the warm but shallow waters of ignorant bliss. Let me make an explicit distinction between the desired and myself - that is, the explicit distinction between the silently admired, loaded with potential and the inevitable hopelessness attributed to the admirer in doing so. How tragic. This ignorance is not only a simple lack of knowledge but also a blindness to the injustice that was being done to me and that I was also potentially doing to the other. It is unjust to blindly fill another with one's own ideal desires.

I declare an adamant disagreement with the notion of love at first sight. (Think twice, however, in labeling me a cynic. I remain steadfast in my claim to romanticism.) To place one's self in the column of believers of love at first sight is to place one's self (not the desired) on a pedestal that is destined to either be reached or, in not being reached, leaves one's self in her original state of solitude at the false expense and fault of the desired.

What this sort of admonition of love creates, in actuality, is a coat of armor for the desired. It declares one's self a brilliant artist, destined to be able to revel only in one's own beautifully tortured soul. It is seeking symmetry. In claiming love and the perfection of an unknown other and viewing a vision of perfection, I was declaring myself, in turn, as the ideal. It is seeing a mirror image, projecting back contours of pure attraction.

How narcissistic to live in such a golden age of love, during which we are happy almost by ourselves. This love was from the beginning the cancellation of the other.

It turns out I had only been inhaling this whole time. How deliciously terrible this infant flow of oxygen tastes.




-Mosephine has deconstructed. not destroyed.

An Eye For An Eye and Both My Teeth Back, Please

I can remember being eight years old, my tiny feet yearning to fill the space within my roller blade boots.I know my memories are lined with nostalgia. Still I go as far as to say that I am positive that despite the disparity in the size of me vs. the size of my roller blades, my hockey stick and my opponents, I put up a damn good fight in that drive way.

I had just learned how to skate backwards and was making
sure everyone understood that. I think it was me and my dad against our neighbors Mandy Hall (whose knee caps would wobble when it was cold, which was a neighborhood anomaly) and her older sister Steph Hall. Extremely competitive and overly self confident, I skated right up behind Mandy. I was going to sneak my stick between her skates, scoop the hockey ball my way and turn around to shoot into
an open net, winning the game and the approval of all the admiring
spectators (ie-my mom). I approached my target, my eyes focused on the pavement, my mind prematurely celebrating my victory so vividly
I could taste it. Then -WHAP!!!- I immediately opened my eyes and found myself on the ground, my left foot on yellow, right hand on blue, hockey stick I swear still in the air, blood dripping down my chin. Mandy's own version of the game included a rocket shot during which she flung her stick back and down to hit the ball into her own net. This shot knocked my two front teeth clear out of their sockets.

In dreams, teeth serve to symbolize self-image, the way you feel about yourself or the way you feel others perceive you. I think it works just the way you would think: teeth clean and attached to your gums = a positive, confident self-image, teeth nasty or falling out = embarrassment or a lower self esteem for whatever reason. The hockey game is honest to g-d a true story. It just occurred to me, though, how often my teeth have been knocked out by so many different Mandy Halls. And how many times I've set myself up for it by refusing to remove my head from the particles of water molecules above my head. I shift from the teeth in my mouth to the teeth in my head. The teeth that when left unattended will gnaw at various control centers of the brain like Ugolino, resulting in a sub par human performance in the various arenas in which life likes to place you.

You know, like yesterday when an attractive customer walked into my store, the clouds parting/rays of sunshine lighting/angels singing, the whole deal, my proverbial teeth fell directly out of their sockets and down the back of my throat, preventing me from uttering a single coherent (much less witty - I would have even settled for appropriate) statement during the entire interaction. As said customer walked out of the store, still back lit by heavenly rays, I raised my fist and shook it, cursing that Mandy Hall and her hockey stick of beauty. I then promptly returned to my station to look for my teeth which I believe I accidentally spit at her sometime between a muffled Hello and toothless Goodbye.





-Mosephine is greater than the sum of her parts

Are You There Maude? It's Me, Harold.

The experience of moving out of my previous house has felt reminiscent of an abrupt break up. It felt surreal for a second.
I was 21 years old and found myself an isolated guppie in a sea of thoughtless peers.
But then my mind momentarily stiff armed my sentiments aside and took action to recover, to literally move on.

See, to revise a long story into a short one, my great landlord's weasel-ass son conveniently graduated law school and returned to my town just in time to evict my friends and neighbors (in order to move his own weaselly ass in early) and scam me out of my home. I had 2 weeks notice to find a new home and a night and a day to pack my life into little boxes made of ticky tacky, seal them with duct tape (the stuff of life) and lift-move-repeat.

The last night my room and I were together, we shared a special moment, creating a Best Of - My Room Edition and mourning the passing of a relationship that once was beautiful and comforting and satisfying. But then, without warning, it became nothing but a cold, empty space. One with which I no longer had a connection. All traces of our relationship vanished into thick, cardboard lined air.

I found myself driving past my former settlement the day after I moved out. I rolled down the window of my black Honda Accord, my peering eyes asking, Is it really over? Just like that?
The unfamiliar porch furniture replied, May I ask who's speaking?
Oh, the goddamn nerve you all have. I saw how you put the gifts I left you in the trash. The microwave in which we shared many a left over, the corner chair that was there when I moved in. The chair?! I guess I thought you were different.

I've moved on now, though. I have a new home with a yellow living room I fear will remind me of my old, yellow dining room. A new porch which probably won't offer the people watching atmosphere of a previous time gone by. But you know what, I have lots of houses that WISH I lived in them. The house in the duckpond. The place on 8th and 3rd. The apartment upstairs is in love with me. Oh, 202. What could I have done to impress you?

Yes, I'm with my new place. I even have a new room now. We're pretty happy together. But to be honest I still think of my old room often. Of course it will subside. I mean, if a room is going to be that empty and distant (clear across town), I don't need it anyway, right?

What's a warm-blooded animal like me to do
Among all you, so cool?

-Mosephine Don't Know What She Knew Before