soopastryheart

Though I read plenty of articles, essays, and short stories online, I have yet to read a digital copy of a book. I’m not against digital readers as I used to be, but I still prefer the physical texture of printed paper beneath my fingertips. The problem though, is that my attention span is just a sliver of what it used to be, so finishing an entire book seems like an arduous endeavor.

But back during the days when I would practically inhale books, I developed an ever-so-common habit of folding a teensy corner of the page to mark where I had left off. This was fine when I could finish a book within a sitting or two, therefore limiting the amount of corners which would be bent. Fast forward to now, where that creased triangle is present on every other page, leaving the book filled with unsightly literary razor burn. And then guilt crept up on me; those tiny page nicks started to feel invasive and oddly enough, disrespectful.

So I started using bookmarks, anything flat that was within arm’s reach to mark my spots. One time it was a stick of gum, which was fine until I forgot about the book for almost a year. I returned to find that the gum had secreted its sugary juices from the compression and had fused itself onto the pages. Occasionally it was a credit card, which also worked fine until it buried itself into the book, rendering it invisible. This inevitably led me to freak out at the loss of the credit card, so I turned the whole god damn place over to try to find it. There was never a designated bookmark, so everything I used was impromptu; it just had to be conveniently flat and require just milliseconds to grab and use. Some markers definitely worked better than others, but over the years, one that became the most popular were band-aids.

I carry a band-aid with me at all times, a habit I adopted from my mom. I have a few tucked away in my wallet, several thrown around in my purse, some stashed in the crevices of the car, most suitcases, and usually the pockets of jackets and coats. I always had a band-aid within reach, so naturally, when I looked for a bookmark, it was there, ready to go. And they were perfect: plentiful, flat, and easily replaceable. And they were individually wrapped, so unless you observed really closely, no one was the wiser. Or so I thought.

For awhile, there was a book I carried in my purse because I was determined to finish it in the milli-moments of the day when I could squeeze in a few paragraphs/pages. The book would get tossed around in my bag, and the band-aid would fall out and get crinkled. It suffered through weeks of thrashings until the wrapper’s integrity disintegrated and it slithered off like a reptile shedding. When that finally happened, I disposed of the wrapper and continued to use the now-exposed-but-still-unused band-aid, promising myself to replace it with a protected one when I got the chance.

Except I always forgot, and this tortuous spin cycle in my bag continued. Unfortunately, the band-aid can only take so much abuse before the protective flaps that shield the sticky portions start to yield, collecting whatever random debris it comes across: granola bar crumbs, random strands of hair, a shitload of questionable dust and dirt. Within a week, this band-aid had become a magnet to the most disgusting particles found in my purse.

Then one day, during a meeting with my then-mentor, a prominent department head at the children’s hospital (someone who I truly respected and admired, and desperately wanted an endorsement from), I was searching for my notebook when I pulled out the book instead. I set it down on my lap for a brief second before I noticed the band-aid drooping down from the side, grosser than ever before, greyed at the edges from the collection of dirt balls and hairs of at least three different shades. I shoved the book as quickly as I could back into the bag, but the damage was done. The way it was dangling didn’t indicate its purpose as a page marker, but rather an unsavory tag-along, like when you step on gum on the street.

The look on my mentor’s face was a combination of discomfort and repulsion, similar to the reaction you’d have if you caught the guy sitting next to you on the bus with his dick out. But like, if that dick had some some crushed cornflakes and lint stuck on it. I mean, this thing looked like it came off the toe of someone who had been walking barefoot through New York’s subway system for a week. He didn’t know the story of the band-aid. He didn’t know that it was utilized for anything other than what it’s actually for. For all he knew, it was used to cover some oozy, pus-bubbling scab, collecting bacteria and blood and sweat. And I had kept this rancid bandage for who knows how long, for who knows what reason. And maybe I had used the band-aid, but what if, WHAT IF, it was someone else’s contaminated dressing that I was collecting?! In that split second, I saw him questioning my entire existence, perhaps asking himself how and why I was even there. I mean for god’s sake, I was someone who nannied for his kids. I was in his house on a semi-regular basis. And here I was, a putrid band-aid hanging out of a book.

To salvage the situation, I think I managed to mutter something along the lines of “…not used…book marker…” but it was unclear if he understood what I was trying to say or not. He just continued the conversation as if it hadn’t been revealed that I was some freak that collected used band-aids in her purse, or someone so uncouth that she failed to realize that there was something so repugnant stuck to her belongings. That day, I went home and immediately replaced the band-aid with a new one, and for the following week, I tried my hardest to casually make the new wrapped band-aid visible, so he could surmise what the previous one was also used for. I wouldn’t be surprised if he never made the connection.

The important thing though, was that this incident didn’t have any negative impact on our relationship. He had already known me as an excessively-prepared, eager-to-please pre-med student. I had already proven my capabilities and potential, and his kids were giving me glowing reviews (in retrospect though, toddlers drop “I love yous” more than sippy cups). And if he had looked past the unsightly band-aid, he would have seen that I was reading Pushkin (hey man, I was at the peak of my pretentious obsession of Russian lit), and not like, Nicholas Sparks. Though he only knew me on a very surface level, he had already made a judgement on who I was. I was the sum of my parts (or at least, what he had seen so far), and this weird/nasty incident was just a tiny blip. Thankfully, he didn’t discount what he had already known about me and marginalized me as “the girl with a used band-aid fetish,” though it would have been awfully easy to do so. In the end, he provided me with a spectacular recommendation and I continued as a nanny for his kids. 

The gnarly band-aid incident happened nearly 9 years ago. And I thought that by sharing this story now, I’d alleviate the level of cringe-worthiness I experienced, but I can’t say with any certainty that it’s done much at all. And if there’s a lesson to be learned here, I’m not quite sure what that is. Perhaps it’s that situations are never as bad as you think they are, or that with time, you can convince yourself that situations are never as bad as you think they are.

Either way, I still use them as bookmarks, so if you see me somewhere and I have what appears to be a used band-aid hanging off a book, you’ll know why.

*Title lyric from “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats

Hey folks, thought I’d check in.

In the past six weeks or so, I’ve drafted at least a half dozen posts, all at a minimum of 2 pages on Microsoft Word (and size 10 font, no less!), but have since been abandoned because A) I’m lazy, B) the piece lost steam/relevance and option A, C) hasn’t been edited and option A. And after reviewing some of my last few posts, I’ve come to the horrifying conclusion that I mostly write about how I cannot write. Like here. And here. And here again. There’s obviously more, but when you start seeing posts with dates from 2012, shit gets real bleak.

I’m staring at quite the impasse here, because I would really like move past redundancy, and definitely don’t want to give up this site, but I don’t know what to write about anymore.

SO. I’m reaching out. It has come to this. If there’s anything you think I should discuss, please drop me a note at soopastryheart@gmail.com or use the Contact form to your left. My brain wholeheartedly thanks you in advance.

*Title lyric from “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” by Randy Newman, but covered by everybody from Bette Midler to Val Kilmer to your mom.

Every so often, an idea will pop into my head at the most inopportune time/place, when my computer is not within reach. Back in the day, I always had a notebook and pen in my bag, but in the last couple of years, I’ve ceased carrying one (a bag). So now, whenever the occasion arises, I am forced to type the idea down in my phone. These “ideas” usually disobey any and all rules of grammar, and are so laden with typos (at this point, spell check just gives me the finger) that when I return to the note at a later time, I have no idea what the fuck I was trying to say.

Other times, I’m in the shower, half-ass lathering my head when an idea that I’m convinced is the best I’ve ever had pops up. When this happens, I will repeat it out loud, over and over, like people do when they’re trying to remember a phone number or the code to a locked bathroom. I will rinse an acceptable amount to stumble out of the shower (many toes are stubbed this way), wrap myself in a towel, and sprint to my laptop, where I start typing away, all while I’m dripping water onto the keyboard. I do this in such a frantic way, that it usually alarms my boyfriend, who always asks if everything is okay. But of course, I’m so concerned with getting every detail out before it’s lost in a mental abyss, that I ignore him completely. When I’m finished, I’ll look up at him staring at me with a look that says, “Yo man, you’ve got to chill the fuck out.”

Unfortunately, this is a scenario that happens far too often than it really should. Every once in awhile, I’ll have to jump back in the shower after discovering a clump of unlathered shampoo behind my ears.  If there’s a more graceful way to handle these epiphanies, I’d love to hear them, if only for the sake of rinsing out shampoo completely, as opposed to like, 60 or 40 percent.

Anyway, the point of revealing the fact that I’m a completely inefficient hair-washer is to pose a larger question (and a few other smaller ones): if my brain is full of these super great ideas that force me into a hysterical panic to get them on print, then why is it that when it comes time to expand on those “brilliant ideas,” my mind draws a complete and utter blank? Is my writing career limited to Twitter-esque ramblings and nothing more? If I string around these spurts of incomplete thoughts, will I eventually have a book on my hands? And how long will that take? 20 years? 50 years? Should I be doing some brain exercises that helps improve memory? Is it my memory that’s the problem here or my crippling insecurities when it comes to my writing? And is there an app that could decipher incoherent memos on my phone? Why doesn’t that exist yet? Should I be carrying around a Talkboy? And why do these fuckers from 1992 cost forty dollars?

It’d be pretty awesome if my brain stopped clamming up when it came down to brass tacks, and start functioning the way I know it’s capable of. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe there’s a small little troll in my brain somewhere that likes to mess with me, tease me with the prospect of writing, and then sabotages the actual process later down the line. Or maybe that troll is me, and I need to stop making up these so-called issues and dilemmas (and excuses) and just write.

Whatever, I don’t know, I can’t remember what I thought about this.

*Title lyric from "The Sweetest Thing" by Camera Obscura

I’m no expert of fashion, evident in the fact there are plenty of designers whose names I butcher rather horrifically, but I am fondly appreciative of it. I subscribe and read (yes, read, not just look at photos and smell perfume samples) an ample amount of fashion magazines, and The Man Repeller is a daily favorite. Magazines like Esquire, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and a dozen others regularly have strong articles (on a multitude of subjects besides fashion), written by writers I’m a big fan of.

I have a pretty good sense of humor and an adequate grasp on reality to take shit too seriously. I try not to belittle sartorial endeavors, but I also understand that there are far more important things in this world than the shade of denim I’m wearing this season. Sometimes, I’ll come across a feature that I find a bit ludicrous, but most times I’ll just let it pass by. But this past weekend, as I was perusing through my stack of September issues, I caught something in Elle that left a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

And the more I looked back at it, the deeper my eyebrows furrowed. By no means am I a political anything, but I found myself growing increasingly irritated at the word choices of Joe Zee:

(from Elle)

Yes, let’s take one of the most regressed and oppressed regimes in the world and turn it into a mockery for your couture needs. I mean, this seems like a caricature of itself for it to be real, something along the lines of this:

Could you imagine overhearing something like, “You look so oppressively fierce girl, so North Korean of you” dropped in casual conversation? Or “Girl, you are totally channeling Kim Jong Un right now, so dictatorially chic!” How offensive would this be? Some analogies are just too tacky to be used colloquially.

It’s shit like this, fashion, that makes you such an easy target for ridicule. Why are you begging for people not to take you seriously?

This past weekend, Philanthro Seattle  trekked up to Ellensburg to get our inner hillbilly on, and float along the Yakima River. It involved plenty of booze, slightly to moderately soaked banh mi sandwiches, a gnarly foot gash resulting in stitches, and ample evidence that none of us know how to correctly calculate the current, distance, and time it takes to reach a designated drop off point.

Boyfriend and I share a lot in common, but what we watch on TV isn’t one of them. Quite honestly, the only times Boyfriend has ever insisted on the channel is during football season. All other times, he has no trouble relinquishing the control over to me… to which he gets the raw end of the deal, since I admittedly watch a lot of “bad television”, like Hawaii Five-O, or Cougar Town, or endless reruns of Friends. He suffers through them because he knows it could be far worse – I could really be into The Bachelor, or the Kardashians, or anything on the CW. It’s pretty rare that we find a show we both equally enjoy, but we’ve managed to find two:

And I’ve realized the reason we’ve found common ground with these two is that we enjoy shows where the protagonist intellectually (and often, emotionally) obliterates everyone else. This would explain why we both love and miss Ari so much. I would recommend checking both shows out if you haven’t gotten into them already. And also, disregard the reviews on The Newsroom and give it a chance (it has its flaws but the repartee is so damn good).

I’m currently working on a few projects that may or may not distract from “regular” posting, but if you felt so inclined to follow up on my most exciting life, check me out on all the other social media platforms!

Twitter (skmoon23)! 

Pinterest (soomoon)!

Instagram (soomoon)!