The More You Ignore Me (2 page)

Despite these dreams—and despite my dedication—I have had little luck tracking
MFL
down in the “meat space,” since it seems she refuses to register her utilities in her maiden name, nor will she list her phone number in the white pages of any conceivable locale.

Quite frustrating, yes, since I simply want to tell her that I misunderstood my role, lo those many years ago.

For reasons that seem silly now, it was, in the first few days of my unemployment,
QUITE IMPORTANT
for me to explain myself thusly to her, and my inability to find
MFL
began to cause me serious harm.

The dark folds began, once again, to smother and choke me.

But then—praise be!—fate intervened and my search for
MFL
became a mere prelude to this Charli matter.

Let me explain.

Since I had been given this gift of time away from employment, I embarked on a few long-delayed projects, including the aforementioned search for
MFL
, and one such project involved obtaining images of certain female politicians.

In the course of searching for a particularly choice candidate—one I will not name, for fear of giving her my unpaid endorsement—I came across a luminous image that was clearly
A BOLT FROM BEYOND
!

The image itself first appeared quite ordinary—“my” candidate waving smugly to a group of protesters—but in the background, in amongst this motley group, I spied a young brunette insouciantly waving a placard while staring directly into the camera's lens with a kind of
dégagé
pout that could not but stir a proper man's soul.

My eyes took in this young brunette—her gleaming doll's teeth, her eyes done up in slipshod shadow, her rabbit nostrils midquiver, all on display in the background of this idiotic campaign shot—and I immediately felt as if I had once again fallen through a wormhole into the past, for, dear readers, this young woman in the campaign photo looked
EXACTLY
like
MFL
as I had known her twenty years ago!

Are you still seated, readers?

Yes?

Then, I have not made myself clear.

How can I accurately explain the singularity of this?

It's not as if
MFL
had a common look—no, she seemed a one-of-a-kind beauty, a very particular taste, a young Ally Sheedy in a bulky sweater hiding quite an array of goodies—and so the idea that someone twenty years later would strike the same pose, cut the same profile, shock the same system . . . well, it might as well have been a narwhal leaping from a city sewer system to impale a passerby with its tusk.

What were the odds?

The odds were so improbable that the fact of this occurrence clearly indicated that the true structure of reality had been made manifest in our false world in order to tell me . . . what?

WHAT WAS THE TRUE STRUCTURE OF REALITY TRYING TO TELL ME
?!?!?!

Perhaps, I thought then, slumped over my keyboard from mental fatigue, this young replica of
MFL
and I would have an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past.

Perhaps, I thought, brightening, there may indeed be second acts in life.

Perhaps, yes, I sat up straight, I do have one or two adventures left in this dim interval.

Perhaps there is a reason I have been cast aside from the workaday world.

Perhaps I do indeed have a purpose in this new millennium!

I lifted my head from atop my keyboard, raised my fist to the sky, and yelled, “
YES
!!!!”

I made a personal vow then and there to investigate, for, if given the chance, I would do everything in my power to give this new young woman the benefit of my love!!!!!

Unbowed by the tracking devices surely installed in the search engine I am forced to use, I set to work with my detective skills and unsurpassed vigor to uncover the identity of this young beauty.

In no time—never mind how, ye cops!—I had a name: Charli Vistons.

And—in a blink—I had a Facebook page.

Wondrous bounty!

I deliriously noted her interests and affiliations, her likes and (implied) dislikes, all laid bare for the world to see like some streetwalker's tawdry wares, and, dear readers, disappointment did not touch me, for Charli was not only the very image of
MFL
, but it seemed she possessed the spirit of
MFL
as well!

Salinger, the Beatles, Dusty Springfield,
Harold and Maude
, the
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
—it was all the same!

I felt the stars aligning after noting that Charli lived a mere hundred miles from me, a day's journey, and she worked semipublicly “on campus” as a “Film Studies Teaching Associate” at
my very alma mater
.

Film studies!

It truly was all happening again!

I began an itinerary in my head, had gotten halfway down the interstate of my mind, in fact, when I saw—brutal fate!—that Charli was “in a relationship.”

Dagger!

What was this twist?

Worse, it seemed she was to be—ah—married.

And soon!

Samsara had seen fit to deal me yet another blow, eh?

I shook my fist at the ceiling, then out the window at the sky.

I rent my night garment (still worn from the previous night) and clawed at my chest.

After a few long minutes of this, I found I could not ignore my feelings any longer, and so in a flurry of clicks and scrolls I delved further into the life of Charli Vistons, obstacles be damned!

I saw, of course, that the young beauty's fiancé was a rotund pud of a man named Nico, unworthy of her succulent charms.

I admit, this was more than a bit shocking—surely she could do better?—but I followed the chain duly, hoping to find some indication that Charli would not be throwing her life away, that perhaps her fiancé was handsome
on the inside
.

Sadly, he was just as dull and insipid, it seemed, inside as he was out.

Thinking Nico's Facebook profile might offer a different and perhaps better perspective on Charli's situation, I clicked on each morsel offered there until I arrived, finally, on a link to the dire and garish wedding website,
Charlico.com
.

I stayed there, despite the insult to my sensibility, in good faith.

Once there on the “splash page,” I felt I had sufficiently calmed down—I admit I can get carried away—and could accept whatever role in Charli's life destiny assigned me: teacher, lover, admirer, friend.

I knew I could still help Charli—which, dear readers, is all I have ever wanted to do!—but I knew even then I must be judicious about my battles. I couldn't simply heave myself headlong into her life.

That was, of course, the mistake I had made with
MFL
.

So, how to approach Charli?

Would her “wedding” really happen?

Was the whole thing as ghoulish as it seemed?

The hidden world does reveal itself to us, readers, if only we take the time to look.

I proceeded with my clicking, and, thinking I was headed to
Charlico.com
's “registry,” where I could perhaps offer
some consumer advocacy, I must have misclicked in a moment of inattention, for lo, I found myself unwittingly “on the blog.”

My browsing history reveals that this fatal act happened in the small hours of a Wednesday morning.

Immediately upon load of the
Charlico.com
/blog page, I became confused.

Society had clearly declared to me on numerous occasions that weddings were private celebrations restricted from public online discussion, and yet, here was a wedding website with a very public blog?!?!

Why?

Momentarily perplexed, the thought came suddenly that perhaps this wedding party wanted to discuss
the issues
!

Yes, of course!

That
is why lovely Charli had a wedding blog!

For me!

Maybe there was hope after all, maybe, I said to myself. I could not only scrub my past clean, but also strike out anew with a joyous community!

Naively renewed, I dedicated myself to studying the behavior on the blog, cataloging the speakers, the arguments, and the ever-present rhetorical follies. It was a time of study.

The facts: Here were two young people without real jobs, prospects, or ideology, set to marry in the countryside out of, one assumes, boredom—an everyday occurrence, nothing special, and yet, I felt, in this case, it was somehow indeed extraordinary.

At first I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

True, the principal players resembled some from my past, but I vowed not to let the Personal distract me from the larger issues at hand, for beyond the resemblances to my previous intimate entanglement (
MFL
), and despite the poor match between Charli and Nico, I felt there was the potential for something special here.

But what?

I continued my observations, and despite what you might think (and, I admit, despite what I initially predicted), I found the perspectives of the young people on the blog to actually be quite engaging.

In fact, after a time, I found them peculiarly resplendent with compassion, wit, and intellectual vigor.

Believe me, I was as surprised as you.

The more I read, the more I found in these voices a rare potential to bring into being a true haven, a shelter from the worldly storm of sorrow and strife, a space where a small group of forward thinkers could discuss
the issues
without society's censors concealing them.

I had found kindred spirits dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, and I thought I could content myself by simply observing and taking note.

Soon though, it became clear the blog was missing a key element, a sagacity that comes with age that could activate the yeast, as it were, and bring the loaf of true thought into the world. The blog was missing my presence.

So, gingerly at first, I tried out my own voice in a meek little comment on a now-forgotten post (cf. “Alternate directions to the Clark House Inn”), and, gracious, I found that I was embraced!

Cousin_Kevin said, and I quote from memory, “It's true that there is quite the ‘wedding industry,' but I don't think we
REALLY
need to go on and on about it here, dude. Congrats, Charlico!”

When I read this response to my meager posting, I'm not ashamed to say it was one of the happiest days of my life.

Truly!

And so many wonderful days ensued of adroit badinage (I won't deny that I took great pleasure in the back and forth) that I literally lost track of time, spending hours upon hours engaged in joyous debate with all comers—Linksys181, Cousin_Kevin,
NICO
!, Emma_1, and, yes, even Chris.

Dear readers, it was then that I understood this blog itself offered the revolution I had been searching for. Why? Because this seemingly private blog offered
FREE AND OPEN COMMENTS
!

The personal is absolutely political, after all.

Of course blog comments in general, dear readers, are revolutionary because they allow for point X, which
dilates our triangular perception from simple A, B, and C into the pyramidal realms.

Before comments, we all thought only in these paltry terms: “words = writer/reality.”

Now, of course, it seems comical to those of us
in the know
that anyone would live such a restricted life, but, dear readers, many still do to this day!

The words these ignorant saps read, the worlds they assume, are only bound manifestations of various writers' consciousnesses mingling with reality, and so unwittingly these “readers” literally
TAKE THE WRITERS
'
WORDS FOR IT
—“it” in this case being the very reality we drift through on a daily basis.

!!!!!!!!

As we know, comments change all of this.

On a blog with comments, the writer and his reality mingle to make the words as ever—but outside, on a separate plane, the commenter is
THERE
evaluating this mingling manifestation, weighing veracity and fidelity on the scales of justice.

And he will not keep quiet!

No, the true commenter alone advocates on behalf of reality unbeholden, and so now, with comments, we have a new equation: