Dear 10 Nice People Who Read This,

I've basically transitioned into using my Tumblr for arbitrary-thought-sharing:
everythinghopeful.tumblr.com
It's easier to update on the go and such, and it's a bit more interactive. I didn't mean to desert my dear Waltzes With Weirdos, it just kind of happened. So I thought I'd let you know where I've been (and will continue to be) and thank you for your interest in my brain. :)

Love always,
Megan

PS: This'll stay here because I like to laugh at myself and look at the pictures from time to time. Just in case you were worried.

The Burning House.

I was recently introduced to this website and very much captivated by what someone's possessions could say about them. We always view possessions as superficial, something to be ignored and in many cases even looked down upon. But this is sort of different. It's not asking you to show off your flashiest, most expensive stuff, but the stuff that's most important to you. Hopefully they're not one in the same. Because I don't think that would make you too interesting.

I wondered what I'd pick if I were asked to gather my most prized possessions. So I tested it. Gave myself fifteen minutes and grabbed things without thinking too hard. A few of the things I chose surprised me.

Starting from the top, left to right, and in no particular order of importance:

- Simba.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (original midnight copy).

- Piece of the set of Anything Goes, the musical I was in during senior year of high school (underneath).

- Glass bluebird candle. One of the most thoughtful gifts I've ever received.

- Parrot bottle opener that used to be my great-grandmother's.

- Little glass bird, given to me at Christmas by my sister Rachel.

- Rainbow's favorite orange mirror.

- Tiny winter music box from my stocking one year.

- My first iPod (First Generation Mini, pink).

- One of the Disney mugs I collect.

- My Swatch.

- Little Chinese buddhist man from San Francisco.

- Box of photos that used to cover one wall of my bedroom (top).

- Box of stories I wrote when I was younger (bottom).

- Journals, from 10th grade onward.

- Album of letters from relatives, given to me on my thirteenth birthday (underneath).

- My charm bracelet.

- Nikon camera my mom used in college.

- Old love letters.

- My sixth grade yearbook.

- T-shirt signed by Ben Folds at one of his shows.

So. There I am, I suppose. I think that if I were to think about what I was picking while I was picking it, it might have turned out a bit differently. I think I'd like to rescue the picture of my Dad I used to keep by my bed while he was away training for his current branch of work. As well as maybe the guitar I barely know how to play. And definitely more letters and pictures. But I don't know doing things that way would've described my subconscious quite as well. You never know what's going to come out of that thing.

If anyone else decides to do one of these, please let me know. I think it's endlessly fascinating.

Some Thoughts on This Weekend's Internet History Log

1. Swimfan. I watched it. Even though my obsession with Jesse Bradford happened in the fifth grade when I was a wee little sproutling, just coming into the knowledge of what it really means to my life when a man happens to have extremely pouty lips that become asymmetrically aligned when he is pleased about something. I decided I was long overdue for rekindling that fantasy. (It also relieves me that I can be attracted to someone with brown eyes. Everyone I’ve ever dated has green eyes. It concerns me, sometimes, about the dealings in my subconscious which I am hereto unaware of).
But anyway, yes. Swimfan. It’s like this psycho girl who stalks this really delicious guy even though he has a girlfriend. And he swims. Um, yeah. I give it four and a half stars, because the psycho chick and I bear a somewhat unnerving resemblance in the hair, eyes, and facial structure categories.

2. In pop culture news, I learned that Bristol Palin is now dating a kid from “That’s So Raven”. Also, Justin Bieber feels that abortion is wrong because “it’s like, murdering babies?” The internet community was all up in arms about these things several months ago. But I don’t like to know everything on time - it keeps me humble.

3. There is a man in the book I am re-reading named Brian Cox. THERE IS A MAN NAMED BRIAN COX IN REAL LIFE, TOO. HE IS AN ACTOR. HE HAS BEEN IN THINGS THAT I HAVE WATCHED. It’s probably the same guy.

4. Never Let Me Go. I actually haven’t seen this movie since February. But nobody watches it when I tell them to! Which I don’t understand, because it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. (Not just because of Andrew Garfield. (More brown eyes. Winning. (Can you put parenthesis within parenthesis like this?))) WHY WON’T ANYONE WATCH IT? I just don’t understand this cultural phenomenon. You can pack a theater when there are blue aliens running around speaking gibberish in a futuristic version of Pocahontas, but you can’t get anyone to rent Never Let Me Go. Ay carumba.

Sidewalk Chalk

Sometimes I get like this:

I can't predict when it's going to happen, and I can't even really explain why - I guess at some point in my life I got used to people, whether it was a boyfriend or a best friend, being really attentive and caring and going out of their way to make sure I was happy. At some point, that stopped. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to do this for me, yet it's what I crave when I'm at my most vulnerable. I guess we're really growing up in certain ways - my brain occasionally recognizes that fact and then acts like an attention-seeking five-year-old to counteract the process.

Everyone gets this way sometimes, and we joke about it because it's such a cliche thing to worry about. But I've realized that for me, one of my greatest fears is legitimately being alone and unappreciated for the rest of my tiresome, emo little existence. (I'm still making fun of it, even while trying to be serious. Call me Chandler Bing, I guess. Or Freddie Mercury).

Someone needs to be there to reassure me that I don't suck when I write an inexcusably catastrophic excuse for a story, or say something insensitive without meaning to, or just feel like I'm not that stand-out as a human being and probably shouldn't expect anything too excellent to come out of my life. This is what my meltdown spaz brain believes I will one day look like if I don't have those things:

Yes. I will be unable to support the upper half of my body, including my ambiguously-colored flat afro. I will be forced to move to New York City, establish my reputation as "Stoop Kid," and live on a slab of dirty cement until I die of some kind of stroke from all the blood gathering in my head. That is what will happen if nobody loves me, according to my meltdown spaz brain.

My rational brain, though, (which normally makes an appearance sometime between noon and 5pm on weekdays, but not always), would probably argue differently. I can't be sure, because I haven't seen her in a while, but my rational brain might tell you that if nobody loves me, I will look something like this:

Yay, no afro! You see, in this version, I appear vaguely satisfied with myself, but not enough to appear pretentious. Since I haven't been on a date since age 18, I have found the time to earn a PhD, which makes me feel smart and successful even though it's a creative writing PhD, which doesn't really mean much in the smarts department. I have also adopted an asian baby, who in this picture appears to be depicted in an incredibly racist fashion due to my lack of computer drawing skills. But I can assure you, I love her very much and there are no racial slurs in our house. I also read her stories all the time, and none of them are about vampires at all. We do not own chopsticks, nor do we know how to use them. She gets a Happy Meal every third Tuesday of the month for her good behavior while Mommy is off at work being smart.

If I had a crystal ball, I could tell you which of these scenarios will wind up being true. But since I don't, I feel like all I can hope for is something a little bit happy. And the more I think about it, the more I think that either one of these scenarios could make me at least a little bit happy. Even the worst-case one. If I have to be Stoop Kid, I'll get to meet Arnold. And I'll be sure to stock up on the sidewalk chalk. I think that could keep me happy for months.

Directions.

Listen to some Coldplay, or the Mumford and Sons CD you just bought from iTunes even though everyone else has had it for six months or so. Play it loudly while you're in the shower, even though the jerks upstairs will probably get mad. Wash your hair with comforting lyrics and long, dripping guitar chords. Let them tell you that they understand, that it's okay. Save the rest of the workshops for the morning, along with your physics homework, even though some of it is due in half an hour.

Lose sleep for no good reason - give some to your homework, and some to the story you've been piecing together about the couple who met on a slushy sidewalk. Give some to a song you've been trying to play, even though it's indecently late or early to be playing a song.

Shut your door and keep people out - spend some time by yourself, staring at the ceiling and playing on figurative jungle-gyms that grow in your mind. Climb to the top, and then hang upside down in the middle. Realize they're hollow and see-through.  Desert them.

Talk to everyone you know and let them know how much you love them. Send your best friend a letter covered in Disney stickers. Tell them about your problems while they boil water for tea and mix pasta and vegetables together in big pans. Go for a walk. Wear a jacket.

Think of words that rhyme, or at least kind of rhyme. Frustration, temptation, deflation, damnation, sensation, translation, vacation, vibration, dalmatian. Think about coming back in your next life as a world-famous violinist.

Fixate on your loneliness and your stress. Dissect them. Put them in boxes and try to sort them by color, or size, or category. They won't make sense anymore.

A Pinch of Self-advertising.

I usually don't like the middle-school, AIM buddy profile dissertations that go, "If you're a good boyfriend, you'll tell her she's beautiful when she's in her pajamas and is crying and has boogers hanging out of her nose and you won't get mad at her when she's completely selfish and unreasonable."  But this one is too awesome not to repost (thanks Nikki).


Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

People who live in the English countryside don't usually kill themselves.

The suicide rates in places like that are astonishingly low when you compare them to places like L.A. or Philly or Hong Kong. And it's not just because there are fewer people there.

I think it's because when you live in a place with a nice view of the earth, you automatically have a nice view of the world, too.