Christmas at Grandma’s

I’d kept the teardrops swelled within my eyes until I walked out the door to leave.

The couple reminded me so much of my grandparents, and I told them so.

“We’re just a couple of old folks,” the husband replied.

“I’m not old. I’ll never get old,” his wife, 82, shot back.

The husband told me she thinks she’s 40.

And I thought more power to you, girl.

She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s this year. Now in a wheelchair, her husband had put up all the Christmas decorations I’d come to see during a break from work.

He takes care of his wife in their home now, as my grandfather did for my grandmother when her mind began to dim like homes after the holidays.

I was hoping to do a sweet story about the couple – about the breathtakingly detailed ornaments the wife made and how proud her husband is to show them off. I hoped to tell the story of a couple married 63 years, “and counting,” and about how the groom hung dozens of ornaments himself this Christmas, reminding his wife of the years they’d done it together.

The ornaments the wife created are stunning. Each is unique, with a different backcloth surrounding a different shape. They’re threaded with beads, sequins and other flashy trinkets, some patterned, some masking the whole ball.

“It didn’t take me that long,” the wife said.

“Five years, 10 years” her husband jumped in.

“Well, yeah.”

The husband guided me around the home, showing off the wreaths and other trimmings his wife had made over the years.

“You’re proud of her,” I told him.

“I’m proud of her,” he said.

He’s worried an article in the paper will incite burglars to steal his wife’s creations. He’s protective of her work, he says, but I know there’s more wrapped up in the balls than just the beads. There’s love. Talent. Memories.

One afternoon I called the couple’s home when the husband was at the store. After a few minutes of conversation, the wife connived a plan.

She wasn’t worried about burglars, she said, so we’d just have to do the story behind her husband’s back. Come over at 1 p.m. Wednesday, she said.

I laughed the way I laughed when my grandmother was wonderfully mischievous.

My grandmother would hide $5 bills from my grandfather, stashing them until I’d come visit. While grandpa was in front of the TV, she’d call me back to her bedroom and slip me the cash.

I never really protested, because I knew that was her joy.

I didn’t protest when the couple offered me two ornaments today, either. Rather, I accepted with genuine excitement, hoping they could see how much I appreciated their kindness.

I picked a purple and a blue one, which happen to match my tree perfectly.

I told them, tears swelling larger now, that I’d keep the ornaments forever to remember their story and to remind me of my grandparents’ story.

My grandfather loved my grandmother fiercely, too. Only cancer could sap his strength enough to leave her in the end. And as it goes with two people who have spent their lives supporting, encouraging and loving each other, grandma joined her groom soon after he died.

The love I saw in this husband and wife was so familiar. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to get another glimpse of my grandma and grandpa all the way in Victoria, TX.

Before I reached down to hug the wife in her wheelchair, she asked me my name again. She searched her memory, telling me someone in her family has the same name.

“Our granddaughter,” her husband helped. “Our granddaughter’s name is Kayla.”

“Yes. She’s as pretty as can be,” the wife told me. “And so are you.”

First time

I was going to lose it that night. He was the one, and I was ready.

After a month of dating ­– or the equivalent of 14 years in middle school time ­– I was going to let him put it in.

Thirteen years was long enough to have only tasted and felt the texture of my own tongue. It was time to lose my French kiss virginity.

After an hour of his sweaty palm dragging my sweaty palm along the track surrounding that Friday night’s Pinto football game, someone in our group made the nonchalant suggestion we’d all been craving.

“Let’s go sit on the hill.”

We probably ran up that hill – dubbed makeout hill – removed from the stadium lights so dirty deeds could be done under the watchful eye and snickers of only our classmates.

And there we sat for the last two quarters, feigning watching the game, our eyes never really making it past the coed feet sprawled in front of us.

I was in a mirrored house with him, calculating his every move as a sign that he wanted to kiss me. Or that he didn’t.

A twitch in his leg was intentional. An itch was an excuse for him to get closer to me.  Or was it?

Overtime wouldn’t offer reprieve from missed opportunities that night. The game was over, and he hadn’t made a move, as far as my assessment could tell.

He was shy, I resolved in those last fleeting minutes.  We hadn’t spoken more than a few words all night, but his tongue was ready to make moves. I was sure. At least I hoped.

While my friends hurried me along, I turned to say goodbye. Fighting the fear, I kept my head straight for the hug, resisting the urge to lean to the right and go home dissatisfied.

With my eyes open, carefully aimed, our lips touched. His tongue slipped into my mouth, and he poked it around a couple times.

It was skinny and warm and wet and tasted like Big Red.

After a few seconds, I backed off from the embrace, said nothing, turned and levitated down the hill.

My aunt Donna picked me up that night. I was quiet in the car, replaying the sensation and wondering if she could somehow tell what I’d just done. I didn’t want to tell her, but I hoped she knew.

My aunt tucked me into the bottom bunk of my cousin’s bed that evening. I didn’t sleep much but woke up early. My first thought was, “I French kissed a boy.”

I can’t remember if we ever kissed again. Maybe we did at a dance, when the teachers’ heads were turned. Maybe we did at the next home football game.

A year later, I remember another boy suddenly sticking his tongue in my mouth, and I had a friend break up with him for me the next day.

The subsequent kisses were never as shattering. I can’t recall with nearly as much detail the taste of even the first kisses with the men I would go on to love.

Experience suffocates experience.  Memory always taints the future.

But ain’t memories sweet?

Back then hoes didn’t want me

Dear god, I’ve always been a prolific writer. I can prove it by these excerpts from journals, essays and fiction I wrote in those years profanely referred to as “middle school.”

After digging through a box full of these historical documents, I noticed a few recurring themes (a bit of which is documented here): love of dogs, fear of flying and my altruistic nature toward the cliched world peace.

Though it seems to me now that these things are a given, I never really knew that’s who I ALWAYS  was. Sorting through this hilarious mess was deeply enlightening, and I owe endless thanks to the teachers who made me document these thoughts that would have been soiled by time.

Here are some of my favorite excerpts, punctuated and spelled originally:

Also, America was discriminating Ho Chi Minh. We thought he was just a bad guy because he was communist. Isn’t that what we fought so hard to stop in the Civil War?

Of course I’m the star but my co-stars include many diverse people. They include: Whopi Goldberg, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Anniston, Bill Cosby, Adam Sandler and Sheri Oteri (who left SNL for my show).

Howdy partner! My names Cowboy Joe. I’m a livin out here in the sticks a Texas.

I’m so lucky to be born in America. I couldn’t begin to imagine living in a poorer country like the Phillipenes.

I had tons of puppies, I was married to _____ and I was famous. Only one wish left. I had to make it good. Finally, I wished to have peace on Earth.

I should win a medal for lots of things including – I can fit a soda can into my mouth and I’m the world’s biggest dog lover and I can make my nose really skinny and I’m the best student in the world.

One day when I awoke from a deep sleep and looked in the mirror, I saw I was starting to grow gills.

I sometimes wish I had a better family but deep down I know I love them and they love me – even my brother!

(About an airplane ride) I jumped up and immediately ran to the toilet. Hey you would have to go too after that dreadfull ride!

On a timeline of my life: Be valedictorian. Marry Freddie Prince Jr. Host TRL. Crash one of my eight cars. Freddie Dies in a limo crash. I marry Carson Daly.

Biutiful

“Tell me a happy bedtime story.”

We had just finished watching “Biutiful,” with Javier Bardem, and I had yet to decide if it was the best or worst movie I’d ever seen.

“Biutiful” is poetic, sure. It’s the sort of thing to which you ascribe “poetic” because you can’t quite grasp it. It is one of those visceral films, the ones that leave your tummy rumbling with a feeling you can’t quite put your finger on. Pleasingly dissatisfied, perhaps.

I cried. I shielded my eyes. My fingernails pierced my sweet boyfriend’s skin in moments of suspense.

But now it was bedtime, and I was scared. I lay under the covers, knowing, just knowing, my dreams would be haunted with dead Asians hanging from my ceiling.

“Tell me a happy bedtime story.”

He started with “The Three Little Pigs,” and we laughed and laughed trying to figure out how the plot went. Was it sticks? Hay? The smart one built with brick, that’s easy. No mention of plaster and drywall?

“And he huffed, and he puffed, and he BLEW the house down,” that sweet boyfriend of mine recited from a time before I knew him.

Big, bad wolves are hardly happy, I thought. So we spent another hour, my head on his shoulder, exciting each other with “Do you remember (insert childhood fairytale or nursery rhyme here)!?”

I struggled to remember the moral lesson I thought each of the folk tales were supposed to demonstrate. “Jack and the Beanstalk” is all about listening to your mother, right? Nah, Jack didn’t sell the cow like his mom told him to, and he ended up with a chicken that laid golden eggs, right?

A quick Wikipedia search revealed the original “Jack and the Beanstalk” story had our dear protagonist stealing and murdering and lying and all that immoral stuff. It also had a scary giant.

Turns out all these childhood tales were fee-fi-fo-fum. From three territorial bears to a kidnapper pushed in an oven to Jack and Jill breaking their bones. Even the beautiful Technicolor “Wizard of Oz” forced kids to endure tornadoes and witches and totally creepy flying monkeys.

I was pondering how I had never pondered this before when I finally found that happy bedtime story.

I remembered an old home video my mom and I had created when she jacked my father’s beloved 1980s video camera for an afternoon.

My nursery rhymes boomed scratchily on a cassette tape player, while I act them out.

My mother dressed me in red plaid and made my uncoordinated ass jump over a candle for “Jack be nimble.”

She threw a paper spider at me during our “Little Miss Muffett” skit. I ran away in a decidedly unconvincing manner.

I rode a rocking horse, displaying the proper lady technique in another rhyme, the name of which I don’t remember.

I don’t remember making the videos, complete with outtakes, for that matter. But I can imagine my mother and I showed the man in our lives our masterpiece when he came home that day.

I imagine my father thought were were so silly, and he told me I was so talented. I imagine he loved his girls impossibly more with each scene.

That memory led me to recall my favorite nursery rhyme.

I don’t have a particular memory of that one either, just an overall comfort when it decides to enter my consciousness.

In this scene, I imagine my father holding me, at a time when I was too big to be held, on our back porch. It’s fall in Missouri. The only thing crisper than the air are the stars, penetrating and seemingly touchable. My daddy has a beard, and it scratches me when our words merge.

“I see the moon. The moon sees me. God bless the moon. God bless me.”

And with that happy bedtime story, I fell asleep in another man’s safe arms, this time hoping to never forget the details.

We’re all assholes

The downstairs door was creaky.

.

That lesson I learned my freshman year after a particularly naive attempt to meet up with my boyfriend.

But I was a senior. I was 18, which meant I knew everything my parents were still trying to figure out in their 40 plus years.

The guest bathroom door, at the opposite end of the house, would be perfect. I’d run the water, like I was brushing my teeth. Like I was a responsible underage drunk concerned about oral hygiene.

“Meet you at the mailboxes in 15 minutes,” I’d text.

Hours later, I’d sneak home just as wasted, because at that point of inebriation, it’s all the same.

Still hours later, my father would march into my bedroom, command that there be light, and haul the covers off my stiff body.

“Time to clean, Kayla Bell.”

I’d mumble something indecipherable yet obviously disrespectful to the man who for no justifiable reason fed me and put a roof over my spinning head.

“Hungover?” he’d ask. “Shouldn’t have come home at 5 a.m. Time to clean, Kayla Bell.”

A few of the details may have differed. Maybe I got ballsy and texted my friends to meet me in only five minutes. Maybe my dad added a few curse words the 10th time he had to see his baby girl a drunken mess at 8 a.m.

But for the most part it was the same. I was an asshole. And my parents loved me. They loved me enough to let me make mistakes and intensify the consequences of those mistakes.

Last night, a friend said if she never had kids, she’d be OK.

I agreed.

We one-upped each other with our asshole teenager stories. We were bad. But for the grace of whatever god was tasked with the grueling job of watching over us, we were not imprisoned or six feet under.

I do not wish to endure a night of what my parents spent years suffering through. I have nothing but pregnant, gang banging, crack-dealing child karma coming my way.

Cue Swaggie.

The whole reason I started writing this blog was because of a comment my mama wrote on a picture I posted on Facebook today.

“Payback from all the times you snuck out of my house!” she wrote on a photo of another contraption Swaggie managed to escape to leave her trail of super turds on my carpet.

It’s hardly a fair comparison, but that connection honestly allowed a little bit of self-forgiveness.

I still beat myself up over the hell that I put my parents through when I was a teenager. I really never understood why or how they claimed me, much less believed in and encouraged me.

But if their love for me is anything like the love I have for Swagg, I could all but poop on their pillows and still be worthy of love.

Even when the smell of Swaggie’s super turds wake me up from my sleep, I love her.

Even when she insists on licking my face after licking her super-turd-creating butt, I love her to death.

Even when that little bitch escapes the brilliant devices I construct to keep her in the kitchen, I shake my head and love her.

She’s nothing but a blessing who brought indescribable joy to my previously poop-free existence.

I have faith she will soon grow up and regret all the shit she brought to my life.

She’ll get over her more literal asshole stage, just like I did.

And then she’ll blog about how lucky she is to have such a loving, steadfast parent, just like the parents I had.

Best Bitch

“Hey babe, do you think Swaggie’s the best doggie in the whole world?”

“God, babe,” he said, giving about five seconds of vain to the the lord’s name.

I leaned back into the passenger’s seat of his truck and laughed deeply while he vented about how I can be so annoying.

“You ask too many questions,” he roared while picking up speed down the gravel road.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded between belly laughs, completely oblivious to the imposition of yet another question.

I loved him more than ever, that night he admitted to being so damn irritated with me.

Until that outburst, I was pretty sure I could have purposefully drowned his dog and he’d still say something like, “You’re so cute when you drown dogs.”

Our relationship became real, at least to me, that night I tried to conceal my giggling in Swaggie’s fur.

That night I realized he realized I wasn’t perfect.

But he loved me.

And, I don’t have to ask. I know he thinks Swaggie’s the best doggie in the whole world.

The Chronicles of Nonsense

This is the chronicles of nonsense. The adventures of fuckleberry finn. Kayla Bell’s series of unfortunate events. 

My experience at the unhappiest place on earth — the Texas DMV.

After trying to buy some booze and discovering my Missouri ID was two weeks expired, I would soon understand why Mexican immigrants choose to endure scorching deserts, dangerous rivers and shady coyotes to come to this state.

Doing it legally is so much harder.

I went to the DMV the day after realizing I had been riding dirty. Well, as dirty as I get. It was a Friday afternoon, so I had already prepared myself for hell, but I didn’t anticipate leaving in tears. I had every document that proved my existence and legitimacy: birth certificate, social security card, passport, expired Missouri IDs, proof of insurance, car title, proof of registration. I had even reapplied makeup so I could for once take a good driver’s license picture. I got this.

An hour later, I would find out that because I no longer had a valid out-of-state license and was under the age of 25, I’d have to retake the written driving exam, the actual driving exam and… dear god… enroll in a 6-hour driving course.

I briefly considered moving back to Missouri to become a housewife, but resolved to call the driver education center to see how I could take care of this They said I could come in the next day, pay them a hefty $100 and be on my way. The next day was a Saturday. The only Saturday I’d had off in months. I cried on the phone, and the nice man said they would work out a payment plan with me if I couldn’t afford it by the next day.

“It’s not about money, it’s about principle,” I told him.

I tried to blame everyone, including the Swagg, for the hoops I had to jump through now that I had let my license expire.

But now that the ordeal is over, I can admit it was my fault. Well, 10 percent my fault, 90 percent Texas being completely unreasonable.

That Saturday, I drove to my driver education course. Catch that? I drove. My classmates were like, girrrrrl you’re crazy. I’m like, I forgot I’m illegal. Truly. This is nonsense. I do not belong here.

On our first break, a large black woman revealed she was “in” because she tasered a cop. I abandoned my phone conversation to ask her how the hell she managed that.

“Like this,” she shot back, pulling the trigger and shoving a taser gun near my face.

“Get me out of here,” I said when I got back on the phone.

By the next break, the class was chummy, comparing the weed in their pockets and setting up Facebook friendships and drug hook-ups for after class.

At one point, a girl polled the classroom. “Who all here graduated high school?”

Answers varied from, “I’m on my fifth year,” to, “I’m working on my GED.”

I kept quiet. When asked how I got answers for simple addition/subtraction stopping distance equations, I lied and said, “got lucky?”

On another break, a girl with a kid was complaining about her rent. “I pay $76 a month!” she said, appalled.

“Girl, I pay $18 cause I got TWO kids,” the taser-friendly chick said.

“Get me out of here,” I texted.

All this is not taking into account our 86-year-old teacher, who was a sweetheart and meant well… but if I had to teach these classes every week, I’d turn into a dumbass, too.

“WHY, whyyyy, in this day and age, must we have alcohol at gatherings,” he asked the class, which was completely irrelevant to the driving course.

“Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding, so it’s not a current phenomenon,” I was surprised I let slip out of my mouth.

“But WHYYYY,” the guy who said he’d never had a sip of alcohol persisted.

“I don’t know. Take it up with Jesus.”

I was being an asshole to the nice man, which I truly feel bad about now. But I was SO annoyed and really just wanted to take that damn written exam and leave.

At the end of the day, I got 100 percent on my written and road sign tests. I chucked up the deuces to the people who failed their exams and DROVE my ass home.

I got up early Monday morning to get in line at the DMV, turn in my paperwork and schedule an appointment to take my driving exam. Not only could I not schedule my exam until the next week when my family was coming to town, but they made me take my license picture that day. I had JUST woken up and either just showered or hadn’t showered in a few days… either way, I looked disgusting. So, for seven years, I will be identified WITHOUT makeup on. The girl who applied makeup minutes after leaving the womb, DID NOT WEAR MAKEUP the day of her ID picture. Somehow that’s Texas’s fault, too.

A week later, after my dear friend Jenny drove me TWO more times to the DMV, I was finally able to take the driving exam. I had broken out in hives, terrified, because it was the moment of truth. If all of this — the tears, the tasing, the anxiety — was in vain, I was resigned to just have two kids, pay $18-a-month rent and walk it.

The mammoth of a driving examiner squeezed herself into my car, her knees pointed outward because the 6-foot beast could barely fit. She said in a deep voice, “Let’s go,” and if I were 16 again, I would have unbuckled my seatbelt and ran away in tears.

During the horrifying drive, I twice got scolded for driving too slow (25?!?) in a 30-mph zone. I got marked down for that, but walked away with a 94 percent on my exam.

Bitches.

I peaced out with a paper ID that’s supposed to last me until they mail me my real ID in a few weeks.

And… can you believe it? Bars don’t accept that paper as legitimate identification.

TEXASSSSSSSS!!!!

Swaggie Like Us Part 1

I did not seek a professional opinion, but I’m pretty sure the Swaggster suffers from ATK — Addiction to Kayla. WebMD estimates 1 in 5 adult males suffers from the disease. There is no known cure. 

But seriously, I think Swaggs has something of a dependency… issue. I hesitate to call it a problem because it’s so damn cute.

I’ve never seen her eat, mostly because there’s no time for sustaining one’s life when KAYLA’S HOME, KAYLA’S HOME, KAYLA’S HOME! She can’t devote her attention to treats, toys, cute male dogs, anything, when I’m around. It’s always a spastic “where are you going because I need to be near you,” state.

Plus, there’s the eye contact. THIS DOG stares at me. Like an intimate love affair, her eyes are locked on mine when I pet her, as if to say, “You had me at ‘I’ll take her.’”

And dear god, she’s worse than sleeping with a clingy man. Any time I move, she wakes up to see where I’ll land, then snuggles into the nearest crevice to kiss my armpit, drooling mouth or nose.

Is it weird to pee with a dog on your lap? Cause I haven’t peed solo in days.

I can’t say I hate it. I love that she’s a cuddler. I love that she loves me and wants to show me such pure, precious, adorable, sweet sweet affection.

Except it’s heartbreaking when I have to leave. The neighbor has informed me on more than one occasion that my dog is an asshole.

I came back after a 30-minute hiatus the other day and could hear unrelenting, desperate barks/howls before I reached my building. I walked up the stairs repeating, “please don’t be mine, please don’t be mine.”

Of course it was the Swagg Monster. Poor baby. I really do think she suffers from separation anxiety, which is a legit condition in dogs, especially those rescued from a shelter. Besides that one time, I’ve never heard her bark. When she’s around me, she only makes odd moaning sounds or grunts, which nearly had me considering the names Helen or Keller.

After some research and some tough lovin, though, I think we may be on our way to kicking the problem. And I’m not an oblivious stage mom, I really do think my baby girl is a VERY quick-learner and obedient.

The tough lovin came when I learned not to be as excited and literally pee myself like she does when I arrive home from work each day. Instead, I say ‘sup,’ then show her affection when she calms down. Though inside, I want nothing more than to squeeze all of the joy and beauty out of her precious being immediately.

On Monday, my day off, I also practiced leaving for progressively longer periods of time, then returning before she became too anxious. So my lil’ mama knows I’ll ALWAYS come back for her.

Finally, I leave plenty of toys out and some tunes playing when I go to work. That’s right. My one-year-old jams to gangsta rap music all day long. Her name is Swagg (double G!) after all.

For the last two days, I’ve had no complaints and haven’t heard any small-dog screeching from what sounds like the depths of hell. Things have been calm. And, despite my forced snubs, my Swaggie loves me just as hard.

But how could you not love Kayla?

Stay tuned for my next (already written) blog, in which we discuss Swaggie’s ONE bowel movement that I keep finding in disgusting places.

Stuck-o

“Your tears will never touch the floor again.” 

We had just finished exchanging massages when I rolled over, bra still unhooked, and began crying.

I was distant, staring somewhere beyond my stucco ceiling, and his body language was engaged. He puzzled into me as best he could and wiped every tear before they could touch the floor. Just as promised.

In that moment, I wanted to tell him what I saw penetrating through the stucco ceiling. But it’s a void I’m not sure I can find the words to fill.

Instead, I told him I hated the way he loved me. I hate that he cleaned up an entire Friday night party while I was at work on Saturday. I hate that he tackled the mountainous mess with me before the party — that he did it with kisses and rap music dancing and, “No babe, I’ll take out the trash.”

I hate it because I feel so unworthy. Not unworthy of love, certainly, but unable to return the dedication. That level is absolutely not where I am. I appreciate, dear GOD I appreciate a sweet man, and I’ll hug him genuinely, with the deepest sincerity. And I’ll love laughing with him before catching a glimpse of the stucco ceiling.

I see innate loneliness up there. I cling to it, like a baby blanket. It’s a comfort that I know and a comfort that I know I will one day have to let go.

That solitude… I don’t know what it is. Man, I crave it. I absolutely yearn for detached, for the moment, for waking up and knowing the day is mine, and I can do whatever I want without consulting another.

Without being able to express why or what’s beyond the ceiling, I’ve told him that much. I’ve told him to stop all that he does for me. Stop putting in so much when I am admittedly not willing to do the same. Full disclosure doesn’t fully prevail over the guilt, though.

I indeed stare teary-eyed into the stucco ceiling and ponder how I could deny or take for granted such commitment. I don’t want to say it’s because I’m afraid, because love fear is so cliche. But then, struggling to not be cliche is a cliche, as well.

I wrote the above last week, before this weekend-o-hell. I pushed him away sufficiently enough to see him talking to other girls at the club on Friday. Damn Victoria and always seeing someone you know.

I felt jealousy, pure and simple. But despite some free Patron shots, I had the maturity NOT to prove to myself I could snatch his heart back. Instead, I cried discretely at a corner table, my tears falling four feet to the ground.

He finally approached, apologized for doing exactly what I told him to do and whispered his devotion in my ear. All I could say was, “I just don’t want this.” A few minutes later, he frustratingly lied, saying he wished he’d never met me and hopes to never see me again. And I didn’t want any of it. The stupid drama, the jealousy, the guilt, the feelings, the insincere but hurtful words, the damn crying in the club. I don’t want it. Instead, I wanted nothing more than to dance to “Ms. New Booty” with my girls and use awful pick-up lines on boys.

Courtesy of Jennifer: “I just wanted to tell you you’re the second most attractive person I’ve seen tonight.”

“Say what?”

(point to myself)

It worked. You know, until the whole sloppy, “I just don’t want this,” sobs.

It’s not the right time, I suppose. Hello cliche, I’ve missed you. Nowhere in my foreseeable future do I anticipate letting anyone in on what I see in the stucco ceiling. While I can’t put a finger on why, it’s satisfying enough to argue that I just don’t want it. I just don’t.

I have this need for loneliness that, once appreciatively grasped, is somehow more powerful and addictive than any warm fingers on my wet cheeks.

If I please, I can stop the tears from reaching the floor just as well.

Block

Nobody should start off a piece of written work admitting that what is to follow is horribly uninspired.

In the case of Snooki’s book, it goes unsaid.

Me? I’m achingly uninspired. For a girl so in love with words, it hurts to only be able to describe the desperation with this sentence.

I hear people outside my window and only want to laugh with them. I only want to pick up my phone and make humans happen.

But I’ve had this terrible itch for loneliness. I’m never alone. Whenever I try to make time for you and me, for keyboard and Kayla, I end up with a passing hello.

Goodbye.

I don’t have the energy to communicate with you anymore. We’re not what we used to be, and I’m terrified we never will be. Terrified.

The truth is, I’m seeing someone else. Lots of someone elses. And they require less from me. They’re just laughs, and you’re just exhausting.

Writing is an unreliable drug. I’m digging with each inhale, painstakingly searching for ways to describe my withdrawal. If I could put it eloquently, the drug itself would cure my addiction.

That’s just awful. Everything I’ve written is awful. And nobody should end a piece of written work acknowledging that we’ve all just wasted our time.

But at least I wrote.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…