Curiouser and curiouser

It seems it is that time of year again. The time when everyone gathers 'round a table piled high with food and tells everyone what they are thankful for. Usually at this time of year I would mock the tradition, complain (loudly) about how silly it is to celebrate the mass slaughter of Native Americans in a desperate struggle for land. However, this year I find I have things to be thankful for so instead I think I will share those. After all, how many times can you listen to my pointless speech about murder and turkey? So here it is, the list of the things your lovely Dormouse finds herself thankful for this year.

I am thankful for my friends who have stood by me through the good times and the not so good times. For the friends who have held my hand when I was sad, laughed with me when I was happy, and gave dirty looks to that other friend who was insulting me to my face. It has been a difficult year and really a girl couldn't ask for better from those who have supported her. So my dears, you are lovely human beings and I only hope you know how much I love you. I hope in my small ways I have made your lives better. I want you to know that you have made mine not only bearable but wonderful.

I am thankful for an old friend who strolled back into my life recently and reminded me that I still have it. That I am, for all my faults, still fun and exciting and beautiful. I'd thought I'd lost it. I'd thought I had grown dull and let the fire in me go out. It turns out it's been there all along. I just needed someone to come along and fan the flames a little. So thank you for helping me find my old self and my old confidence. I know I've told you I appreciate it. I don't think you understand how much.

I am thankful that I am strong and capable and that I can make my own voice be heard. I've worked long and hard to get to this point and now no one can take it away from me. And I'm thankful that I've learned this at last.

I am thankful for my family finally learning how to be a family. It's been hard but we're here. We still have a lot of work to do but maybe this year we won't get into a screaming match on Christmas Eve and no one will throw a jar at anyone's head. We're all still together and the gods have granted us one more year so maybe we can get it right. I have high hopes. We've been moving in such a good direction. I can almost say "I love you" and mean it every time.

Finally, I am thankful that the ghosts of my past do not destroy my present. Certainly they are here lurking in the shadows and begging to be let free. But they are not attacking. They've let me be and I've found some small peace. I am thankful for the comfort they offer and the distance they allow me.

So my (much less) hypothetical fans go to your houses (or wherever you make your home) and be thankful for all the little things. Be sentimental and eat too much food. Hug everyone too much and drink a little too much wine. Be merry. Indulge a little too much. Know that you are loved and that somewhere there is someone who is thankful for you. Have a wonderful holiday and do a shot for me.

-The Dormouse

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

Oh darling, let's just let our broken record spin. The needle keeps skipping in the same place and we'll never move on from this. We try to repair it but let's get serious here, it's never going to play all the way through. So just accept it and let the song do what it wants. You can stand on the tracks as you watch me derail and we'll go down in beautiful flames. You can kiss the burning metal while the fire consumes us. Let me be your grand self-destruction and I'll let you be mine. We're good together when we're not talking. So darling what I'm saying is you and I can try to move past this but inevitably you'll watch me push the big red button and the two of us will go hurtling into space. Or maybe we'll just go hurtling into the backseat. So just relax and let it happen. You and I, we just don't change, we were made to stop the record player here over and over again.

-The Dormouse

Setence first--verdict afterwards.

I got an e-mail today telling me I'd run off on an opportunity to meet his fiancée. I was unaware he wanted to introduce me to his fiancée. I e-mailed him back and told him I was very sorry for running off and that I would like to meet her. Then I started thinking about that. And I freaked out. I started hyperventilating. I couldn't conceive of a situation where meeting a new person ended well. I couldn't breathe I was so frozen with terror. Just the thought of meeting her and freezing up like I always do. To have her think I am some sort of idiotic mute her fiancé has befriended out of pity would be too terrible to imagine. I sat at my computer and tried to make things stop spinning as the utter terror of meeting someone new tried to kill me. And things started going upside down and I felt scared and dizzy and I wasn't even meeting her. A series of frantic IMs to Switzerland and some deep deep breaths later and I'm feeling okay. But Goddess only knows what will happen if he actually attempts to introduce me again.

I've started smoking again. It helps. I mean, it's not the best crutch to lean on but I find of late that when I panic and begin to feel like I'm crawling out of my own skin a cigarette seems to bring the calm. Maybe that's what I'll do. If he brings it up again I'll just take a deep drag on my cigarette, let the smoke out through my nose, and pretend that meeting his fiancée won't end in disaster. Perhaps it won't. He could very well see my panic and find a way to save me from it. Of course, he could also let me flounder. I certainly hope he doesn't. That would be awful. I'll let you know how it turns out. Maybe I'll just tell him how badly I panic and he'll find some way to understand it? Who knows. I'm not psychic. If I were I wouldn't have run off instead of sticking around and being introduced like a normal person and we wouldn't be in this situation.

-The Dormouse

Do you suppose she's a wildflower?

He wrote me a song. And it's lovely.

Lately I've been watching 80s films. They're wonderful. But I've come to a conclusion. Much as I enjoy John Hughes films I am increasingly certain that I could never be a John Hughes film. Years ago I thought perhaps I was The Breakfast Club. Only how could I possibly be The Breakfast Club? I'm certainly not Molly Ringwald and even though it really seems like I'm Ally Sheedy I could never give myself up in that way. I could never change everything about me to make a guy notice. So I'm not The Breakfast Club and when I first realized that it really bummed me out. I wanted everything to turn out okay and to write that witty letter at the end of the film to all the people in the world who see me in the simplest of terms. But that film is not me. It is put together too carefully and everything is too perfect. And nothing in my life is ever that careful or perfect.

But he wrote me a song. And it's lovely.

-The Dormouse

Oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!

Let's hold a funeral. We'll mourn...well, we'll morn me. Or rather, we'll mourn the me I used to be. You see, lately I've been missing her. She was fun. She was completely mad but she was fun. She knew who she was and what was important. I don't feel like I know who I am anymore. One can say a lot of things about addiction but at least it gave me something to love. Lately I've been out of sorts. I feel like everything has gone grey. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to say good-bye to the old me so that maybe I won't miss her so much. But who would have anything nice to say about her at her funeral?

-The Dormouse

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a lot faster than it does.

Lately I find I have been allowing other people to make my life decisions for me. I sit around and let them tell me what is good for me, what isn't, and especially which people I should be allowed to keep in my life. So I think I'm going to stand up for myself once and for all and you my (slightly less hypothetical) fans will sit powerless to stop me.

So here's the thing, I'm a grown woman. Certainly I make stupid choices and obviously I sometimes overreact to things. But as a woman who is recognized both socially and legally as an adult I am allowed to make these stupid choices. I am allowed to get drunk on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or any other night of the week. The law says I can do that as long as I don't vomit all over the street or steal a car. I am allowed to do basically whatever I want so long as it's not completely against the law. Being friends with a man who is engaged? Not actually illegal. Talking on a relatively regular basis about things going on in our lives? Still not illegal. Even having a thing for the aforementioned man who is engaged? NOT ILLEGAL! So why, I ask you, is everyone I know trying to convince me that I have done something wholly wrong and unforgivable? I've made a friend, a friend who is funny and charming and intellectually stimulating. And yes, he is also pretentious, outspoken, and sometimes odd. And he's engaged. And I'm dating someone else. Somehow this makes it impossible for  us to be friends.

Only, I really can't understand exactly what is so wrong with our friendship. We're not sleeping together. We're not going out on secret dates (although those are fun). We're not even seeing each other outside of class. So what have I done wrong here? Why am I being shamed by my friends? Why am I being told I'm essentially the other woman? Clearly I am not. In order to be the other woman I would need to first be doing something other than engaging intellectually with another human being who happens to already be in a relationship with someone else. In this situation I am not doing a single thing wrong. I'm not even attempting to come between him and a woman I have never even met, or seen, or heard much about other than an offhanded mention of a fiancée. Fine, I admit it, I'm incredibly attracted to him. So what? Back the fuck off. Stop treating me like this is 19th century America. I'm not Hester fucking Prynne, I didn't sleep with a priest and conceive a child out of wedlock. Stop trying to pin a huge scarlet A on my chest. I'm a big girl and I can do what I want and it's really none of your business if what I want is to be friends with someone who shares the same ideas as myself in subjects that hold our mutual interest. Seriously, stop it. Even if you think it's a mistake it's my mistake to make. I'm a big enough girl to get myself into and out of these situations without you trying to make me feel like I've done something wrong.

-The Dormouse

Who...are...you?

So here I am. Reclining on a couch. In my friend's room. Trying to sleep. And sleep eludes me yet again. I don't understand it. I just want to sleep. Does anyone have the secret? I'd like it please.

-The Dormouse