Bedazzled: A Late Night Rambling of Words

Quirky people are like the bedazzled version of regular people. They just sort of absorb a regular situation just as it is, but then spin it back out all sparkly and covered in bows. And I love them. I love walking into a room, full of strangers, where I’m a fish out of water, and then, something happens. Someone just blurts out something amazingly random and seemingly obscure. But I, I can connect the dots, and I instantly feel a connection. Someone that sees something different, that can speak truth in the ordinary, but, makes it pretty and relatable, not simplistic and harsh. Someone who is just, not the same as everyone else, and in the best way possible.

Chances are, quirky folks, I notice when you talk with your hands, always sit on the left side of the table, and can maintain an entire stream of conversation with me involving hypothetical ponies and the magical mayhem they get into. Oh, and those people that stand within hearing distance of those conversations, looking at us like we’re crazy? Jealous. They are fighting a deep urge to join in with, “Hey, and maybe they could grow wings that are like brown and purple and we could call them Peanut Butter & Jelly Ponies, or like PB& J P for short!” They want to say it, but they just aren’t as cool as we are.

In case you haven’t noticed, the kid who gets picked last for dodge ball? That’s me. Because instead of focusing on the whole main point of dodge ball, I’m thinking: “I wonder if there’s an equation that can accurately express the exact velocity and impact levels that are about to commence during this activity.” “Why did they choose a red ball? Maybe it has color symbolism, like red is powerful or something, so it’s like this giant mass of red energy hurling through the air at you or something? Why not blue? A nice calming blue that lightly calls, ‘catch me!’ or something. I’ve probably read more books that involve dodge ball more times than I’ve actually played the game. Whenever I did play it I was always the girl that stuck out her hand and was like ‘Psst, right here...’ and tried to get out asap, before the instinctual violent tendencies of pre-adolescent youth reared their ugly faces.

 I don’t even know where I’m going with this, it’s late and I’ve lost track of my point, except that sometimes I wonder if it’s just me? Because I often get myself into situations where I can see the quirks of others as being wonderful, but my own odd tendencies as just a weird mutant form of quirky. That’s the root of the problem of being quirky. Sometimes it’s endearing, and offers a chuckle to the group, but at the end of the day, you go home and you wonder, Man, am I really the only one? Overall, I think I’m in pretty good company; it’s just that most people tend to keep their really dazzling quirks hidden. Sadly. There has got to be others that refuse to read the backs of books, that have a fascination with post-it notes, hate hand sanitizer, and eat salads with their fingers. There’s just gotta be. Or maybe you drink wine with a straw, can hold an entire conversation in rhymes, or have a love of crayons that just defies explanation. If so, I think we could be friends.

 Today, in fact, I was able to reach out to a friend through a very emotional time. I was watching an old episode of Roswell (think Dawson’s Creek having a love child with, I don’t know, maybe Smallville? But like, a really beautiful, brilliant love child, with brown eyes. ) on DVD no less, when I had a full blown meltdown regarding a plot twist. Yes, a plot twist involving futuristic aliens and true love, wrapped in a Sheryl Crow song circa 2003. This is how I know that my life is amazing. Because when I was audibly weeping, I had someone to text, and reach out to. That was able to make me feel better. Even though I’m a bundle of weird, I have these amazing friends, that don’t care. Or rather, they do care. It just doesn’t really bother them how odd I am. It probably bothers me way more than it bothers them. So thank you to my friends, that know me and love me just the same, and for seeing the bedazzled pieces of me and thinking that they’re not so bad at all.   

For Best Use

I just recently opened up a new candle. Inside, just below the lid, there was a little booklet that detailed the greatness of the candle I was about to light. It also congratulated me on my brilliant shopping ability in choosing such a high quality product.

 There was also a section headed ‘For Best Use’.

Under this helpful category was the sentence: “Although our candles and home scents may smell delicious, they are not edible. Do not eat.”  And there it is. I have, in my possession, a ruby red candle labeled ‘Crisp Mountain Apple’, that smells better than the actual apple I have sitting on my counter, yet I must not eat it. Sigh.

          I find it hilarious that such a sentence even exists. Mostly because, you know somebody, somewhere, tried to do that very thing. Below you will find a dramatic reenactment of this very situation.

(Candle is lit. Delicious scent begins to permeate the room.)

Person A: Mmm…that smells just like a real apple, maybe better! Maybe it tastes like an apple too!

(At this point a less than well-meaning friend speaks up.)

Friend: You should try it.

Person A: Come on dude. It’s a candle.

Friend: An apple candle.  That means there’s gotta be, like, real apple in it or something. It’s probably really good for you.

Person A: But, it’s on fire. Sort of.

Friend: Well blow it out first you idiot!

Person A: I don’t know…

Friend: I’ll give you five bucks.

Person  A: Five bucks? Really?

Friend: Ten. Ten bucks. Final.

Person A breathes out slowly, considering.

Friend: Whatever, man.

Person A: Okay. I’ll do it.

        And he does. You know he does. How do you know? Because now someone has the job of typing the little warnings on products that explicitly state that delicious smelling candles are not to be consumed into the human body. Which also tells us, that Person A’s story most likely didn’t end positively. Maybe the candle company even got sued over the fiasco, because they didn’t think to warn Person A that such a situation could happen, and that he should have resisted the temptation in the first place.

On this note, I feel I should stop writing, and go on a mission to find other potentially hazardous items in my home. Normally, I might not even have read the fine print that adorns those stickered labels. But now, after considering the fate of poor apple guy (I guess I don’t know for sure that it was a boy, but come on, really?) I figure it will be worth the effort to master the general dos and don’ts of the products that share my roof with me. Better safe than sorry, right?

Oh, and for you curious folks, other warnings listed under the ‘For Best Use’ category include:  “Do not put candles in the freezer.” and “Candles and water do not mix.” Yes, its official, I want to shake the person’s hand that wrote out this booklet.



Serve and Protect

I walked home in the rain today. Even though the weather forecast had predicted rain, it’s quite rare that I would have ever factored the prospect of it actually happening into my day. As a rule, I generally prepare for all weather or no weather. It strikes me as more than a little arrogant to think that Mother Nature can be crammed neatly into a 7-day forecast, right between a gang shooting and a playoff game highlight. The weather will do whatever it wants to do, and its’ fickle tendencies will play upon the Earth regardless of whether or not I remembered to bring an umbrella or not, which, by the way, I didn’t.

Umbrellas serve as protection. They protect us from the wet, the cold, the potential discomfort of our situation. Once I was without one however, I was struck by how little I actually missed it, and admitted that I didn’t really need to be protected at the moment. I was okay, getting wet and sidestepping puddles. It was nice to feel the breeze around me, chilling the raindrops that had blazed trail ways across my face and toes. I, of course, was wearing sandals.  

But I never would have realized this, had I had an umbrella handy before I stepped outside. How often do we do this? Protect ourselves as a precaution? Because something could happen, something might happen, because we have been conditioned and trained to take the least painful route possible. Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense. How do you even know that an umbrella is what you need in the first place if you’ve never felt the rain? Once you’ve felt that drenching, soaking sort of rain that chills you to your bones, only then can you appreciate the value of an umbrella.

And as immense a business of avoiding a broken heart has become, it is through the sole experience of having your heart broken that you appreciate why it might need protecting. The heart is a tricky place. I’m pretty sure mine is surrounded by barbed wire and snipers, with only a select few outsiders in possession of the access code. And even they have to pass a retinal scan. It is what it is, but I think I’m starting to figure out why.

When your heart breaks, it is painful simply because there is so much of it that breaks simultaneously. The scent of dryer sheets, an off-key song, a loose strand of hair curled around an ear; these are the things that break. A fissure exists in between the left side of the bed and a post-it note on the mirror. Hairline fractures freckle the landscape of my memories, because we used to slow dance in the living room to movie credit soundtracks, even though you rolled your eyes as you spun me around.

Breaking a heart is always an inside job; a regular, who knows their way around. Someone who helped construct the towers within, adding layer after layer of petal soft words, building entire cities from musical notes and apples in tuna fish. A person, who you waved through all of the checkpoints, and supplied with domestic weaponry never suspecting that it would be turned against you. Heart breaking is exactly that. Running through alleyways, pushing over skyscrapers, not slowing to watch them fall. A massive internal earthquake that leaves devastation in its’ wake.

As painful as it is though, once you have stood in those bullet ridden remains of your life, and felt the rain pour down your face, you now understand the importance of an umbrella.

I have rebuilt my heart from the ground up. I have gutted the cities and drained the sewers, and stitched the sky back together with strong, ragged strokes. And I’m okay. I survived the hidden fault lines of a naïve love, and gritted my teeth in the aftershocks that followed. My borders are guarded, heavily armed, and full of good intentions. My umbrella, stretching across the dust ridden terrain that I must protect.

Sometimes though, you leave your umbrella at home. And even though your instinct is that of panic, of distress, you take a step outside. And you’re okay. Your eyelashes are sticking together, and your toes strain to find purchase in the wood grain of Steve Madden, but you’re okay. It actually feels kind of, nice. To stop fighting back. Letting nature soften your edges, and erode your defenses. It’s messy. When you get home, you’ll have to change out of your sopping wet clothes, untangle your hair, and wipe off your face. But it is what it is, and if I find it arrogant to claim mastery over a weather forecast, how much more arrogant am I to declare jurisdiction over my heart?

 Life is messy, and love is the chaotic, rumpled web that holds all of it together. So while I hold fast to my feeble attempt at border patrol now, I know that I will not always do so. Not on the basis of what could happen, of what might happen. Because it’s obvious to see that we survive equally fine, if not unquestionably better, with the rain cascading down our faces, and that is, in the end, what should happen.