Miss Misery

MISS MISERY WAS ONLINE AGAIN. It was becoming more and more difficult to ignore her, waiting, crouched almost, feline—or was it supine?—in my buddy list. I knew where she was—online—but I still didn't know where she
was.
Other than in my head, of course, which was where she seemed to reside more and more often.

It was late April, and I was sitting at my desk, gray shirt, blue boxers. My laptop clock said it was 1:08 a.m., but it was running about ten minutes fast. On my headphones, a mix I had made for Amy's birthday skipped tracks; in the silence, I thought I heard her shift in her sleep. Or almost sleep. Another song started then, one by Rilo Kiley: “The Good That Won't Come Out.” A jaunty number about creative constipation. Not bad, I thought. Appropriate, even. I wondered if the crescendo would be audible to Amy even through the headphones.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window, framed in the halo of light from my computer screen. Familiar face, familiar situation. I looked tired, but that was the way I felt all the time these days. I was tired, but I didn't ever feel like sleeping.

Just then, Miss Misery switched on her away message. It was the usual one, a verse from the Cure's “To Wish Impossible Things.” What was she doing at one in the morning? Who was she away with? Who was she away from?

Maybe it was all just a tease. A way of letting me and all of her other virtual admirers know that she was around—just not around for us. The lady in her chambers. The lady will see you now.

Except she won't. Behind me Amy coughed. I signed off, hushed the music. It was time for bed. Again.

I'm smoking while I type this tonight–getting ash in between the pristine white keys, probably, and I don't care. Benson & Hedges 100s, apparently. I think it's what Mom used to smoke. Cody gave me three tonight before he dropped me off. I'm on number two now and won't go to sleep until all three are gone.

When I went to the doctor back in January she asked me (like she does every year) if I smoked and blah blah blah and this year I just felt like fuck it basically and told her yes. She seemed kind of surprised at first, but then mostly just tired. She rattled off this long list of reasons why I shouldn't smoke, but I could see it in her eyes that she had already given up on convincing me to quit. One of them was “your teeth will turn yellow” and I thought that (a) obviously this is the dumbest thing of all time to be worried about but also (b) I DON'T CARE. I mean, I LIKE the idea of old me with my yellow mouth–of my stupid too small teeth slowly picking up bits of tar and nicotine and whatever and changing color like leaves do in autumn. I'm looking at all this smoke that I'm taking into my body and then pushing out the open window here next to my desk and thinking–DON'T GO. I want to have evidence that I did it. Otherwise what's the point? I want it to change me. I want it to color me. Otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Where were girls in my freshman year unit who were already obsessed with getting older. These girls were like 18 and they weren't afraid of leaving home and they weren't afraid of falling into wells–they were afraid of wrinkles. I think their priorities were entirely wrong, but none of them ever asked me. Sometimes when I walk around through the city in the early early morning (which is rare, I admit it–it's more likely to be the very very late night and I haven't gone to sleep yet) I think of myself being older and being actually old and I wish it could happen sooner. There are times when I don't like how unmarked and smooth my skin is, how utterly snappable my bones feel. I want density and debris; I want to live my life on the outside of my body for a change, not the inside. I want my life to be a suit I never have to take off. If I was old I wouldn't have to wonder all the time and I wouldn't have to blush. I could do things and people would trust me.

Right now (note: cigarette number three!) I feel pent up caught up choked up. I see middle-aged women with their pear bodies and raisin heads and I think–that's not what I'm going to become–that's what I already AM. That person IS me–it's not where I'm going, it's what's waiting inside to come out. This stupid skinny frame with the knotty elbows and knees is wound too tightly–I wish it would just give up, exhale, spread out. I wish–sometimes I wish it would just relax.

My father is still awake. He's playing more of that crazy Viennese modernist crickets dancing on vacuum cleaners in hell music. It's loud and there's no rhythm and I know he's in there, twirling his pen, keeping time to some beat only he can hear. He's such a sweetheart. I hope he can't smell this cigarette smoke tomorrow. I can't believe it's almost May.

ps I'm not drunk right now honest I'm not.

I should be asleep now because I have a trig exam tomorrow and I'm supposed to do super well on it but I can't sleep. I can't lie still. I'm still thinking about the concert. How amazing it was. How it made me feel. ::smiles:: My skin feels electric.

Maybe it's because I'm not allowed to go see many shows but I think it was more than that. This was special.

Krystal and I got there early (it was at the SaltAir–crappy, I know, but both bands are so BIG now). We got about halfway through the crowd and had a pretty good view of the stage when Krys gave me this LOOK and I knew what it meant–we just started laughing and DIVING through the crowd, like pinballs through a machine, bouncing off huge guys and their bitchy girlfriends. We got almost to the very front when this one gigantic guy in a Jazz jersey yells out, “Watch out for these two–they're SNEAKY.” And for some reason this just made us crack up–like it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said. That's us. We're SNEAKY. ;-)

But when Brand New came on I stopped worrying about what anyone else was thinking and just felt the music. It started in my ears but, like, MELTED into my sternum, into my waist, until I could feel every chorus in the bottom of my feet. Jesse Lacey has this way of singing onstage where you just KNOW he's feeling every single word like it's for the first time–the anger, the dreams, the tears, even the laughter–and it makes everyone in the audience feel the same way. I've listened to their albums approximately 1000 times in the last few months alone, but I felt like I was hearing every lyric, every note like it was–oh god bad pun–brand new. ::smiles::

And then Dashboard. Even from where we were standing Chris looked like a little boy–like a bird boy–but that VOICE. I wanted to punch all the teenyboppers around me who started screaming “chris yr so hottt” when he came onstage. He WAS hot but it was wilder than that. It felt like when I went to temple with my parents when I was too little to start hating it and I believed that whatever I heard there came directly from a higher power. That's what Chris singing those songs was like. I didn't even hesitate–I just started singing along with him at the top of my voice and Krys did the same and I didn't even mind it when the dudes who called us sneaky started singing along too. I felt connected to everyone then–the teenyboppers, the jocks, the punks, the boys, the girls. All the crappy people of crappy Utah and they felt like family. When he sang “Swiss Army Romance” and the part about “searching just like everyone,” I had tears in my eyes because I believed it. I felt for a second like I was bigger than my body and bigger than the entire arena. That I wasn't trapped. That I could escape.

I know it sounds stupid but I felt like these Russian wooden dolls that I've had on my desk since I was like 8 years old–you know they're different sizes but they each fit inside the bigger one? I felt like I've always been the smallest, most hidden doll, but the music and the crowd and the singing and the MOMENT made me feel like a hundred different dolls just ready to bust out.

I hope this is the greatest summer ever. And then next year at school goes in a heartbeat and then it'll all be over. It'll finally be time to escape.

::grins::`

Good night. I hope I get some sleep!