I long to use words that come freely to me when I'm angry and frustrated or uncaring of the language I use. I want to stop using words that don't naturally come to me when I'm surrounded by those who make me comfortable.
I want to not try so hard. I want it to come naturally. I want my words in this freaking white box to not smell of saccharin lies. I want to not sound like Abby Morgan.
I want to tell you that MidWest Joe is funny and sharp, and Stella is as wry and as real as usual. I want to joke about Dizzy's exploits, and explain to you why I enjoy Jessie so much, even if she is a Republican. I want to illustrate how very beautiful Bethy is, with her odd mix of insecurity and quiet confidence and incredibly glowy skin. I want to smirk and make you understand that making out with SoCal Joe would probably be fun, and explain to you why I haven't yet.
There is so much of B.E.E.R. I want to let out, and avoided because I'm afraid, bloody afraid, to ruin the story with plain-spoken words.
But that's all I have right now.
These people are more important to me than I ever imagined them to be, and I've been struggling for the last week and a half to be able to honour them with a few hundred words, and I can't even muster up that.
I'm not Steinbeck or Salinger; I can't turn a phrase into a pretty little bow, and because I'm afraid to try I lose the bits I want to share with you.
Frustrating. So much of who I was has changed in the last eight months, and I can't inject false bits of sassy and clever into my missives anymore. I don't even want to. By the same token, I don't know what to inject instead, because there seems to be nothing there. And so, instead of empty tales, I give you nothing but entries that stay up so long they become stale and musty.
I'm really beginning to hate the word sassy.
And I've no patience for flirty hemlines anymore, because they don't seem to swing right, and my bell-like shape feels more like a gong and who wants to read about that? And that will change, but today it's true. Don't call me on it when next I lose five pounds and want to go shopping.
I have never called anyone poppet in my life.
Someone at JournalCon, upon our mutual introduction exclaimed, "You call people poppets!" and I said yes, and was thrilled and probably blushed and did a dance of joy, because that meant that she'd read me, and how cool is that?! And truly, I was honoured. But... but...
Ugh. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for lying to you. I'm so sorry for trying to fool you into thinking that I could pull off being able to tell you a story if I put on a voice, if I gave you approximately one quarter of my personality, and fleshed it out, and made it whole, and pouted a bit and called you poppet and pretended to be sassy. That way, it's not really me who's telling you the story, and I can't really be blamed if it's boring and not worth reading.
But this trip to Iowa, to see my friends, and to have a good time, is worth much more than that. I couldn't just pass off those heady reunion days with things like, "Oh, my beauties, it was wonderful!" and pretend that that would do the job. Because I did that last year, and the job didn't get done.
Because what I really want to say is that Stella can be a royal pain in the ass when it gets hot out, and Bethy doesn't talk enough, and Dizzy can be trigger-happy with the hyperbole and I take too damn long in the bathroom, and we'd probably annoy the hell out of each other if we lived within non-long-distance distance, which spells out the reality right there. Stella is a mess of the first order, and Dizzy has frustratingly little confidence, and I need to get everyone's opinion on every item I plan to wear that night, because I'm not adult enough to make a fucking decision on my own, which probably drives them to gritted teeth and bitten back insults. And sometimes, I know we all want to slap SoCal Joe around the head and tell him to wipe that goddamn smile of his face because dammit, he's not in California anymore, and should anyone be allowed to be that happy all the time?
And yet, we deal. We deal, and we come back for more, because cabin-fever will drive us crazy by the end of the trip but we'll still agree that it's not nearly enough to make us say something we'd regret and don't really mean in the first place.
Because, simply and shamefully unimaginatively put, they're my friends and I'm their friend, and if they say it, it probably needs to be said anyway, right?
Trust. I guess it comes down to trust. I trust them more than I can say which is why I'm so very comfortable around them and them around me.
You can't sass up something as mighty and real as trust.
And that's why I didn't write about it for so long. That's why I didn't regale you with Princess-in-the-barn-at-the-State-Fair stories. This trip was so much more than a butter cow and deep-fried Twinkies, and a city full of people who wear '80's hair, but not in any kind of ironic way. But I couldn't even tell you that part with only a quarter of myself.
And so, off with the princess and the poppets and the flirty, shiny girlie-girl that never really was, but sometimes is.
Hopefully, anyway.
I'm all over the place tonight. Let's hope that somewhere, in pieces that aren't scattered too far and wide, the glimmer of the point can be found.
And I said fucking. Huh. Doesn't look right, does it?
Didn't think so.
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