“God, am I like the rest after all?”
“Am I like the rest?”
I’ve read Tender is the Night more times than any other book and was never once assigned it. Brag brag brag.
Just: Don’t fucking talk to me about F. Scott Fitzgerald, okay?
Rare use of profanity. So just don’t do it.
password protected.
i have multiple passwords, as most people do. we live in an age of pirates after all. but it’s funny to think of where they all came from. they were devised at various points depending on what happened to be important to me at the time. it’s like a secret scrapbook. they say you should have some lockboxed collection of all your digital access info should anything happen to you. that would be fun to see for other people. i bet we’d all go: wait, THAT was their password for their gmail account?? oh my god i could have hacked it. or maybe: that is so weird, i had no idea they liked that thing so much. who knows what we might say. i think if people saw mine they would realize how predictable i am. how when i joke about something being important i’m not lying. i don’t have any passwords to do with dollhouses though. at least not yet.
couch potatoes.
this past week, i heard a common comment: “i saw your book lying around my boyfriend’s apartment!”
there aren’t that many of my books out in the world. but the ones that are all seem to be lying around people’s apartments. what exactly are they doing with themselves? are they watching tv all day while the people are at work? are they at least trying to search craigslist for a new place? did they offer to contribute to the electric bill? how much refrigerator space are they using? are they being polite or are people passive-aggressively starting to wonder who let them into the apartment in the first place? i’m concerned about them. i never meant to be mother to unintended house guests.
never in my life.
“If you go near her or touch her with your finger, a spark will light up the room and either kill you on the spot or electrify you for your whole life with a magnetically attractive, plaintive craving and sorrow. I was all filled with wandering tears, all my insides glittered and wept.”
why did doctor zhivago change my life?
because i’ll never feel these things. and i’ll never write them.
HERE.
i am a hedonist. narcissist. nihilist.
how nice to have isms. what did people do before them? explain themselves?
twenty-six
today i’ve turned 26.
26 letters of the alphabet with which to make word salad.
coincidence? you tell me, neighbors friends and voyeurs, you tell me.
also my horoscope said i’m going to make money with my writing this year. so there’s that too.
look, sir, you don’t know me
well, that’s rude. no one ever says: your interest in pretentious combinations of ingredients is a result of the fact that your parents never let you have mcdonalds. no one ever says: your having studied art history is a result of the fact that you took a field trip to a museum and thought it was fun. no one ever says: your anxiety over finding a mate has nothing to do with your desire for happiness and fulfillment but is a result of a biological need to procreate.
come on. let’s at least be nice to one another.
me and whoever else
there’s only one glaring grammatical error that doesn’t sound awful to me.
i like to put me first.
as in: let me tell you about me and this other person.
rules say i should come last. but that’s nonsense. i’m the one talking or writing so i get to be introduced as a character before anyone else.
i don’t understand why people make the mistake of saying “i” after a preposition either. everyone’s go-to version of the first person should be “me.” ”i” is something you say to other people so that they know who you are. ”me” is something you say to yourself so you know who you are. me is more important. me is everything.
what was it kierkegaard said? the more consciousness the more will the more will the more self.
self. people go around like they can exist without it. they put it at the end of a sentence. that’s not courtesy. it would be more polite to admit that, since you are telling the story, you are really only thinking about your part in it.
put me first.
yeah right
according to some publication called the washington post, fanfiction is “out” this year. suuuuure. although they said michael fassbender is “in” which is not breaking news in the least.
2012. big year. huge year. guess who’s going to be a real person in the next 365 days?
adjust.
twelve years tonight.
i know he would be mad at me for not being nicer to people, but how am i not supposed to be disappointed with everyone when the most intelligent, witty, and creative person i’ll ever know is already gone?
he used to live in the room below mine. i’d make him bologna and mustard sandwiches. and watch the history channel. he knew i wanted to be writer. he knew.
aw, come on.
the other day i accidentally said i was a “heartless romantic.”
my brain needs to check itself.
a normal person should be able to utter a lie without having it be sabotaged mid-sentence.
Prince Charmings don’t come cheap
Ariel sold her voice. What are YOU willing to spend?
magic.
people think i’m busy being a writer these days. haha. i TOLD you my life is a merry-go-round.
guess what
tomorrow i am going to the happiest place on earth during the happiest time of the year. i plan on being, wait for it, HAPPY.
attention universe!
please see the previous bloglet entry. then see this:
a slightly overlooked aspect of “the three-year-old christmas” is that my main preoccupation during my dad-assisted stocking investigation was a packet of, in my youthful words, gummies.
so there you have it. fruit snacks have been my favorite since forever. i finally understand why they are my comfort food. and sometimes my dinner.
home movies
my parents are fantastic people in that they lugged around a massive 1980s camcorder for every major event in our childhood. my last term at dartmouth, since i had no friends and it was cold outside, i transferred every tape to dvd.
our favorite christmas to watch is what we call “the three-year-old christmas.” that’s how old my brother was. which means i wasn’t yet two, but talking up a storm because, DUH, i have always had an advanced mind. my sister won’t watch it anymore because, awwww it was cute at first but I’M NOT PART OF THE FAMILY YET. but i still love it. i spend the whole time discussing at length the fact that santa was going to bring my doll baby.
anyway, i’m in a weird place this holiday season. but you know who wasn’t in a weird place? little maura pennington in the prime of her life before she had to interact with any other humans besides her family. sigh. life before friends, acquaintances, lovers, and losers. break out the popcorn.
oh no
i just realized i have to go to the dentist tomorrow.
if you don’t hear from me again, it’s been really nice telling you things about my life that you didn’t need to know.
fic-a-versary!
i have no idea how it got to be my fic-a-versary again but it did. four years. and many literary accomplishments later. hundreds of thousands of words, this website, two self-published novels, a column with forbes.
december 7, 2007
dear maura,
just wait, you little hair-mutilating nut. you’re going to be better than you think.
love, future maura
p.s. seriously, though. do not ever again cut bangs for yourself.
p.p.s. also, i know your nintendog rolph is distracting you from the fact that none of your friends remember that you exist, but at some point when you’re 25 try not to hold a grudge and instead keep thinking over and over until it sticks: other human beings are necessary accessories in life.
yeah, so that’s what i would tell 2007 maura. i would tell her A LOT of other things. like don’t date people you don’t actually care about. when you dye your hair blonde, keep it for longer because it looks cool. don’t be a waitress. read more lord byron. that type of thing.
yup, this is what i love
this week is going to be so fun! i’m guest contributing on ricochet.com, which is a great site. already we’re talking about russian lit. it’s good for the soul. then more work on my can’t-tell-you-yet massive undertaking. next forbes piece. another poem for class. so…yeah. writing. i enjoy it.
count it as a win
i was nervous about going out for my good friend joe’s birthday drinks tonight. joe is an android that he constructed himself so i could talk to him forever. it was the other humans i was worried about. but i did well. i told a whole table of people everything i know about president mckinley. they seemed interested. i like to think their laughter was because of my good storytelling skills and not because they thought president mckinley was some kind of b-list president. one person, can we even call him that after his crime, dared to say that president mckinley DESERVED to be assassinated. i promptly shunned him and did not share any more of my facts in the direction of his end of the table. i was kind of sad when i ran out of things to tell them. how can you run out of things to say about president mckinley?! well i was on the spot and i couldn’t think clearly because there was intense pressure from everyone wanting to know about president mckinley.
i wouldn’t say it was enough of a success for me to return en force to my socializing days, but i’ll count it as a win.