Baby Trampoline?

For heaven’s sake, no!  That’s not the kind of bouncing baby you want.

I think you palmed off a Chesterton book on me once.  It was a satire of, what?  Mid nineteenth century English intellectual culture?  You and Dutch bonded over them, and we all know how I felt about my former roommate.  (Have you seen him recently?  Are bitter herbs growing out of his zealous and repressed heart?  What a judgemental jerk.)  Anyway, I didn’t get that Chesterton book, I’m afraid, or get into it.   That may not be fair.  Like a lot of English majors, I’m madly in love with Jane Austen.  But movies and my education got me acquainted with her world, so the humor and social commentary make perfect sense to me now.  Well, perfect is a strong word.  I adore it perfectly, and I think I get most of it.  If I happen to see a used copy of a Chesterton novel at my bookstore I’ll pick it up.  See, I have a small personal library here that I can’t take home with me, so I have to resell my books for a tiny price, which only gives me credit to buy used books.  Not even new books.  What a gip. 

I know exactly what you mean about snowflakes.  I also expected to see those geometric, waffle sized flakes in the air.  Despite this winter in NC, you well know we don’t get much snow.  So when I first saw snow as a kid I was confused.  I thought the small white  fluff was there to trumpet in the real, paper-cut-out-deal.  

  This winter has been the coldest winter in Korea.  It’s been awful.  Lots of snow and bitter cold.  Well, to me, a North Carolina native, it’s bitter cold.  The last few days though have been mild and absolutely wonderful.  It was sunny most of the time.  It rained yesterday.  But after months and months of frigid winter, it could have hailed as long as it was in the mid fifties and I’d have been out in it singing and twirling around all Gene Kelly style.  

While I was laid up with my sprained ankle I read a couple of Austen novels too.  And by golly, afterwards I watched Little Women.  Great minds do think alike.  But unlike you, I liked the movie.  A lot of movies I liked as a kid and teen don’t stand up now, but this one did for me.  What’s your beef?  Your fiance’s scorn?  Puhlease.  Lorrie was an uberdork, you say?  What?  Well, I missed that.  Christian Bale can’t be anything but sexy.  Didn’t you see The Machinist?  If we were in a concentration camp, I’d be batting my sunken eyes and be beckoning him with my wasted finger.  (So our correspondence and, ahem, writing exercise, is showing its major theme: Christian Bale.)  But listen, I have a bone to pick with you.  You said Jo was a dyke.  First of all, that is a derogatory term, which didn’t come off as hip or subversive or what not, but dismissive and derogatory.  Ms. Pohlig, oh Ms. Pohlig!  That is a color I would change.  Do you feel properly scolded?  I hope it doesn’t smart too much.  I’ve accidentally (because it was a stupid habit or because I was a thoughtless snot) said some flippant things in front of a dear family member who is a lesbian.  Things which I can’t take back.  Moving on.

Pet names are cute.  Muff is cute.  I think it is also slang for pubes in one of those British isles.  My mom called me “sweet pus” up into my teens when I finally couldn’t take it anymore and erupted at her.  Poor mom.  Apparently “pus” (pronounced like a short for of pussy) meant face, or at least to my mother.  Dad called me pumpkin.  But what I really wanted to be called was She’ra.  Did you ever seen that cartoon?  Probably not.  Probably you were too busy running around in Africa.  She held up a sword and yelled She’ra and turned into some sort of warrior.  I ran around the townhouse in Durham holding my hand in the air and yelling it too.  

I’m glad you’re enjoying cooking.  People tell me it can be a creative and communal experience.  Also, vital to survival and financial responsibility.  I will humble myself before you and allow you too cook for me.  I told a friend here about the stupid chicken we made once.  I don’t think my friend got it.  I guess it isn’t a story for people who weren’t there.  We baked it with what?  Orange juice and a Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.  Ketchup?  Mayo?  Soy sauce?  It was, as you said, stupid.  If only we knew then to put it into a casserole.  I love listening to podcasts while I do my minor domestic duties.  Have you been turned on to some good stuff yet?  I’m sure I’ve told you my favorites over and over again.  How Stuff Works and Stuff Mom Never Told You are great.  They don’t have the same kind of reporting and production value as the staples, but entertaining and informative.  Kind of like having a good teacher, except no one gives you quizzes.  I miss people testing me, just a little.  Anyway,  don’t listen to them.  When I come back I will be filled with all sorts of knowledge I will use to impress you.

Do you know what I did today?  It was stupid.  I got in a cab.  They took me to one of my favorite places, Hyewha.  I reached for my wallet and damnit, I left it at home. The driver (a woman! that makes the third or fourth female driver out of hundreds of taxis that I’ve taken), okay, the driver took me back to my apartment, I found my wallet after a few minutes of panic, and then she took me back to Hyewha.  That mistake cost me, oh, about fifteen bucks extra.  And guess what?  I did that last week too.  Something somewhere is eating my brains.

It’s Friday night here, and I’m at a coffee shop in Hyewha sitting on the patio.  It’s on a very busy pedestrian street.  Same location, different country, right?  I guess it’s no Caribou Coffee.  I drank a lot of fruity, expensive drinks filled with candy.  Now I drink expensive Americanos.  Ha, Caribou.  I hung out with so many interesting people, I guess is a way to say it.  I sure had some bum friends!  Actual bums, not college student bums like us.  Oh, and that delightful couple.  Fuck, what are there names?  I was dying to get out of Chapel Hill too, which I guess is why I’m on the other side of the world.  That, and a drop out philosophy grad student told me too.  Your right, I was so unconsolably sad there, but distance and time blurs it out.  Thank goodness.  I had a dream recently that I was trying to get to Chapel Hill.  When I lived in Durham as a wee one my parents went to Breadmen’s for breakfast a lot.  Maybe that’s why I like that meat that turns your stomach.  That, and I’m an American!  We love over processed meat.  So do the Koreans.  Anyway,  the first time I went there as a teenager was with Lauren.  We went into Sephora, that makeup store, and I put all sorts of ridiculous silver and red paint on her face and mine, and then we strutted around.  I’d say it was half self-deprecating, half what I really wanted to do.  It was spring and I they had so many more flowering trees than Apex did.  That was my first impression.  A lot more flowers.  It felt slightly tropical.  Plus we were driving our selves in a car!  Oh, the magic of my mildly delinquent teen years.  So in my dream I was trying to get to Chapel Hill, and it was this flowery, warm destination again, not the over played little town that itched like wool during college.  Also, Patio Loca played heavily into my desire to go back there.  I guess they closed down a few years ago.  Maria was working for the owner under the table, and he picked up and left town one night.  He had some sort of outstanding debt she said.

What a rambling mess.  I told you my brain is being eaten.  You’re a good friend, so I’m sure you at least scanned my drivel.  If you miss quizzes too, I can test you on my rambling drivel.  

Alright, I’m being kicked out of the coffee shop cuz their closing.  I didn’t buy any coffee.  Jokes on them!

Bah! Elizabeth?

Dude.  Have you done your assignment?  Are our lives getting in the way of our writing?  You have domestic responsibilities, and I have a responsibility to drink cheap beer and toss around darts at my favorite bar.  (I have a crush on the Filipino  bartender there.  I’m a flirt now, by the way.  Don’t I make you proud?)  

As far as my end of the bargain, I have written a little about the topic I assigned us.  (You do know the topic, don’t you?  Crime and all that.)  So yes, I’ve written a little, and writing about my life reminds me that my life is pretty ordinary.  Remember when my apartment was broken into, and the dude stole my bowl, and about the same time I got fired and rehired at the ice cream store?   I went back to my other journal to make sure I remembered what time of year it happened.  There is a lot of embarrassing stuff in my journal.  Embarrassing because I thought I was clever, or because of my rampant spelling errors, or because I was so fucking dejected. But I’d forgotten some things about that time that make my story a bit more interesting.  I shan’t reveal those things beforehand. 

Inspiration! Dedication!  Trendy topics!  Come to me.

Okay.

Beyond reading, and remembering the toil and joy from undergrad, I have been trying to find inspiration in podcasts about writing.  I listened to one episode of this podcast called  I Should Be Writing.  It made me realize that I would be beyond lucky and dedicated to have (like this chick that was interviewed)  a young adult trilogy steam punk vampire werewolf novel published.  I sunk into a deep despair.  Then I found (and I think you mentioned it) the New Yorker Fiction podcast.  Joy!  

My point?  Well, where is the writing, Elizabeth.  Where is it?

Love,

Bri

My Dearest Elizabutt

First of all, I love that we are doing this. It’s delightful, motivating and promising. Second of all, shit, I’m sorry that it was so hard last year. Perhaps a very biased comment I can make is that I would like to hear about how things have hopefully changed from that. Do you talk about different things now? Have any of the screaming arguments turned into caring discussions? Any improvement, besides little Annie? Should I get a baseball bat and fuck a dude up? Jesus, that must have been hard. Thirdly, you mixed a Star Wars reference with a Star Trek reference, and I’m tickled. Fourthly, I just hoovered up this delicious, buttery bun. Here is the bag from the store:

The king of buns, huh? Oh Korea. That looks like a cross eyed pervert holding up a cow patty. Having never grown up on or around cow pastures, I may be wrong, but that certainly could be fecal matter.

Lets get down to the meat here. Boy. January and shadows in the early afternoon. (Man, not only am I rusty on this writing thingy, but on giving feedback too.) I feel the bleakness in it. No doubt compounded by the fact that I’m your friend and so sorry to hear it. And I think it’s brave of you to be writing about it now, and I know it’s hard. So high-five, lady.

Ugh. Okay, I say that we keep chugging along. I will try and give my first entry a face lift. If you don’t want to revise Life After Dark, I say that you keep to the same theme. After all, there is plenty of fun and drama and intrigue to have at night. Oh la la. And, after we have both done our drudgery there, I have a great great topic for the next one, and I know you’ll have so much kick-ass stuff to write about it!

What is it, you ask?  I shall not tell until the time comes.  But trust me, you’ll have the coolest story.  I’m looking forward to it.

Yours,

Cyberbrain Spock

PS:  What have I done?  I asked you to be the teacher and tell me what to do, and you told us we should move on, and I undermined your authority.  See?  I am a teacher (at least here in Seoul.)  I’m so used to bossing people around now.  Like I needed to be more confrontational and all that.  On the bright side though, I like kids, as I’ve been for the first time in my life around them.  

Anyway, here is our new topic.  Crimes and Detectives.  Crimes we’ve committed, crimes committed against us.  Crimes we’ve solved.  I remember that bike caper.  Bring it on baby!

Dear Elizabeth

Below this is the tepid start to what surely will evolve into pure greatness.  Greatness!  (I’m counting on you to bring the greatness, dear.)

You are my instructor.  What shall I do?  Rewrite it?  Do another with the similar, though vague, theme of “Late, Late Show”?  Will you point out my glaring spelling errors?  I wait on the edge of my seat for your instructions.

Love,

Bri

Crying Responsibly

“Drink moderately, for drunkenness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise”

-Cervantes 

My mom cries at movies really easily.  She’d say that she’d cry when a stoplight changed to green because it used to be such a pretty shade of red.  

I hated crying at movies.  I’d fight it, which usually was much more work, and made stranger sounds.  

My parents saw a lot of movies.  A whole lot.  And I did too, until I moved out and went to college.  Or when I was introduced to recreational drug use in high school.  And what a recreation it was.

A few months after I turned 21 a beautiful writer in my class broke my heart.  After a night out with his friends drinking at bars, (which while the drinking was not new, he was, and so was bar culture) he told me he loved me and kissed me and spent the night sweetly with me in my bed holding me and kissing me, only to pretend it didn’t happen the next day.  Like most sad fucks, I decided to spend a lot of time drinking at bars.  I figured I could some how recreate that night with someone else, and find out how it could all mean nothing, or so little, or be induced.  I tried this for seven months.  I failed one class, and got an incomplete in another, which is a nice way of saying you failed but your prof is giving you extra time to pull your shit together. 

I had no luck recreating what I wanted, and it was around this time that I discovered and started holding sayings like “En vino veritas” and “Drunk men tell no lies” very dear to me.

When I came back from an unfulfilling night, which they all were, I’d chain smoke on the steps of my dorm-it was the oldest building on campus, the most coveted dormitory in the oak-lined quad.  Landscaping and impressive old buildings.  It was also very close to town.  There were lots of students in that area, and plenty of people who saw me sobbing fit to die.  

I was leaving a hip dive bar and crying, as I liked to do.  And this addict girl I knew from my favorite coffee shop-she was bad off.  Begging for money all the time.  She saw me, and she hugged me with her bone arms and asked if someone hurt me.  Yeah.  So that was a low point.

I moved out of the beautiful dorm and into a moldy duplex in a pretty part of town.  It had a carport where my housemates and I smoke and drank and talked.  Our place was broken into a couple of times, and I strung lots and lots of colored Christmas lights up because it was pretty, but also to deter any more break ins. 

I failed out of school because I didn’t see much of a reason to go.  I was on academic probation.  I continued to live in my college town, in the same duplex with different housemates.  I worked at an ice cream store and started to see a therapist who had a bowl haircut and wore hippy dresses.  I cried every night for hours and hours on that carport, until one day I didn’t.  I went out to my carport, where it was my ritual to chain smoke and cry.  And I couldn’t cry.  I didn’t need to anymore.  It was a little startling, like a good friend didn’t show up for a date.  What the hell was I supposed to do with my time?  It was a warm spring night and I went to bed at a reasonable hour.  I graduated about eight months later.  

Recently I watched a cartoon at a theater, and I won’t tell you which, but I watched it and cried profusely, unrestrainedly, because I can’t be embarrassed by it anymore.

Dear Elizabeth

First of all, I am dismayed that you are a better speller than I am.  (How does that quote go?  A man who can think of only one way to spell a word has a small mind.)  Second of all, I just realized two days ago that the Beatles spell their name differently from the insect.  For shame, Briana!

Byron invented the idea of romantic love in marriage?  I thought he was all incest and self-loathing.  From what I recall from some English classes, I’m pretty sure Byron was a philandering, scandalous super-hero.  

Using the crude parlance of our times, I want you to know I don’t appreciate your attempt to cock block me.  Christian Bale and I have a connection that you wouldn’t understand.  Have you seen Harsh Times?  Resuce Dawn? I highly doubt it.  Or how about the modern cult classic American Psycho?   I am sure you haven’t seen that.  It’s violent and sick (and fucking awesome).  If you can’t watch that film, you can’t usurp my position at the alter.  Hell, I even watched the terd Reign of Fire.  You’ll just have to make the best of your actual engagement. 

I’m sure this photographic evidence convinces you of the seriousness of our attachment.

Sewing is good.  You should become a famous designer, and when you do you should insist you only use models who are between the sizes of 12 to 20.   Show my people some respect.  Though I can’t claim to be totally content with my body, I can say that where I would like to be is still not in the realm of high fashion.  That shit sucks, and is weird, and as it rejects me I reject it even more heartily.  I like clothes and makeup and hair, but I don’t like their bullshit.  Male models here are so feminine.  They smile and cloy and cast looks like the female models.  All of it is absurd.

My obsessions are as follows: darts, Dexter, True Blood, euchre, makeup.  None of which is productive.  

Clearly I am stalling having to finish this memoir exercise thingy.  It will follow shortly.  Let me preface it here with an apology.  It’s crap and I’m sorry.  

Love,

Bri

PS: I am not in a position to cook.  I don’t have an oven, and there are only two burners.  Also, eating out can be really cheap if you do it right, which of course I don’t.