I think we would've been best friends

A Sample of our Lessons

"What virtues do you wish more of?" asks Mr. L.

I answer--

Patience, Love, Silence,

Obedience, Generosity, Perseverance,

Industry, Respect, Self-Denial.

"What vices less of?"

Idleness, Willfulness, Vanity,

Impatience, Impudence, Pride,

Selfishness, Activity, Love of Cats.

                                  - Louisa May Alcott's journal, age 12.

once a lonely catterpillar sat and cried

I used to not like Valentine's Day. As evidenced by this journal entry I wrote my freshman year of college:

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I don't know why it should bother me so much; it's just another day. I guess Valentine's Day is like a magnifying glass to enlargen what loneliness I have that I could otherwise overlook. I live every day single, and most of the time I'm happy with it. But Valentine's Day finds that itty bitty speck of "I want something more" and points at it, laughing. I hate the microscope of Valentine's Day, magnifying my imperfect and flawed emotions and relationships. I don't have a man. I don't have someone to send me flowers through CPO and tell me my hair smells good. There is no masculine arm around my shoulders and no one looks dreamily into my eyes across a plate of chicken nuggets in the cafeteria. I am single. And on Valentine's Day I feel like couples look on me with pity, as if I have the plague.
"Look at the leper," Brenda Sue says to Maurice.
"Don't touch," Maurice says, holding Brenda's hand. "She's one of them."
Then I can hear Brenda Sue distastefully click her tongue and mutter "poor thing" as they turn away to gorge themselves on candy hearts.
I'm single. Saying that on Valentine's Day carries the same ring to it as walking down the streets proclaiming, "Unclean!" What can I do to comfort myself on Valentine's Day?

Following this entry is a tiny candy heart drawn in the corner, with the words written in it, "YOU SUCK."

If Present Me were to visit Past Me (who, at the time would be Present Me and Present Me would be Future Me), Past/Present Me would think Present/Future Me was some sort of pastry-puff shell filled with fluffy cream filling, because I, Future Me then who is now Present Me, like Valentine's Day.

Some people, and with every right, think Valentine's Day is a bunch of hooey. They argue, why have a single day to celebrate love when every day should be an example of cherishing one another? I think this is true. We should live every day in appreciation of our loved ones, showing them how much we treasure them with little post-its on their mirrors and flower petals by their cereal bowls. Aw.

But there's a day to sit down and be thankful, when shouldn't we be thankful all year round? And there's a day to celebrate Jesus' birth and His resurrection, when shouldn't we be celebrating Immanuel, He's ALIVE, all year round?

We are, and we do, in fact. But these days let us do it with a little more pizazz, and a lot more food.

So I like Valentine's Day. Maybe because it's just another excuse to bake cupcakes and make pink frosting, like people use St. Patrick's Day as an excuse to get drunk on green beer. I like love. I like hearts. I like sugar.

Past Me is writhing on the floor clasping her throat in agony, as with every word I kill just a little bit more of her.

I don't have a significant other, and, actually, I never have over Valentine's Day. But I do have people I love, and I do have a heart, so why not put it on paper and send it off? Who says V-Day has to be specifically saved for romance?

(Actually I think "romance" is in the very definition of Valentine, but life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter, so don't bring around a cloud and rain on my parade.)

From now until Valentine's Day I plan to think of all the things and people I love, and why I love them and am grateful for them, and I will do it all while eating heart-shaped cookies. WITH SPRINKLES.

my journals remember summer, '07

3/27/07, I have some kind of cyst on my lip that I'm afraid I'll need oral surgery on. :s <-- That's my lip quivering with tears. Pitiful, isn't it.

5/14/07, Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment to get this dumb CYST (cannibalistic yoke of stupid tyranny) off my lip. Oh, I hope they can.

5/15/07, If I were to wish death upon one thing right now, it would be mucoceles, which apparently is what I have on my lip. And after passing the 2-month mark we celebrate our time together by waiting two more months. Two more months with a pea lodged between my gum and lip, because it'll "resolve on its own." Right, and I' am a cow, I love chewing grass, and milking is my FAVORITE time of day, moo.
When the dentist told me to wait 2 more months I almost cried. Maybe I should name it so it'll be easier to bear. Like children. Mucocele, thy name is...Adolf. Because I want it removed from the office of my mouth.

5/16/07, This is me a.) with my new haircut and b.) with Adolf on my lip. My lower lip is being pulled down, you see, so that Adolf is in full view.

6/3/07, Adolf ceased to show for a while after I chewed on him till he was a gaping hole. I had hope he shot himself in the bunker and wouldn't be returning...but alas, he began growing again today. It was pleasant, those few days without him. That's probably how the Jews felt, too.

6/21/07, R.I.P Adolf
March 11 - June 21, 2007
The oral surgeon's words were, "I'm pretty sure it won't come back....." Uh, "pretty sure"? "Yes you have cancer but I'm pretty sure you won't die." Thanks, doc.
I was almost positive he wasn't going to do anything about Adolf today, so when the nurse (?) gave me the glasses and the surgeon fired up his laser, I was surprised. He numbed my lip and I swallowed the bitter-tasting stuff and wondered if my throat would go numb and close up and I'd die. To my knowledge it hasn't.
Then he started cutting into my lip. I felt nothing, but smelled the burning. It was disturbing, knowing they were lasering my lip and it was smoking. A nurse (assistant?) had to stand there with suction so I wouldn't be exfixiated by the scent of my own burning flesh.
Afterward (it only took about 15 min.) Mom took me to the used bookstore downtown and I bought 3 (count 'em: THREE!) Daphne [du Maurier] books for $9. So pleased, despite the gauze puffing out my lower lip and the swollen numbness that made half my lip turn white. (I wondered if the circulation had been cut off and my lip would rot and fall off. To my knowledge it hasn't.)
I regained feeling around 2 and it doesn't hurt very much; only when I move it a lot. It's a black hole and looks a little gross. I prefer not to feel it with my tongue 'cause it grosses me out.