"What if the super you meets the super her and the super her rejects the super you?" 12.23.12

What did YOU get for the Apocalypse? I woke up on Doomsday +1 to practically fall over my Halloween pumpkin that had been thoughtfully retrieved from my trash can and deposited dead center on my front stoop by some merry pranksters at some point the previous night. Luckily, I did a nutty little two-step as I blindly stepped out into the morning to avoid falling head first over the thing, and upon recovering my equilibrium, realized I had done just that. Just hoisting it up and awkwardly lugging its hefty girth back around the corner to the can was a reminder that yep, Halloween is long gone by now. Boom. Thrown back in the garbage where it belongs.

Somewhere between Halloween and now, I found myself felled by the flu and simultaneously, steeped in a glut of bad 90's movies. You know the drill, your Say Anything, Singles, Reality Bites type fodder. (And if you have reality bites, by all means scratch the hell out of them.) Now, part of the problem with this scenario is, among other issues, the fact that these flicks are all about very young people. Naturally, I can't really see myself pulling an acceptable Lloyd Dobbler since he's got about 20 years on me, or (moving along in the strangely chronological linearity these movies track to) a whiny 20-something Winona, or even a poor Bridget Fonda (gesundheit). But boy, did I find myself relating to their youthful angstyness. And you know what? It was strangely refreshing.

Because it had been a while, dear old diary, since I'd been tapped by the velvet hammer of infatuation. It'd been a while since I felt the zingy buzz of excitement that here, HERE right in front of you--can you believe it?!, is someone who is newly interesting, intriguing even. But yes, it really did happen again. Yet, just as I was thinking, 'alright, this could get good,' it didn't. For whatever reason, who even knows if it was me or him or whatever. Whatever. It doesn't matter, in fact.

So then you might find yourself spending a few nights lying around, despondently self-pitying, watching these movies that, even 15 years ago, were just plain silly. Their silly catch phrases pepper you again with silly reminders of how silly you were back then, and worse, how silly you still may be, given the chance. Oh well. This time, it wasn't that chance. This, after only a few weeks, ended up as just a quick double take at that potentially interesting, intriguing person: 'Oh, I thought you were someone I might know.' But he's not, becauase no, you don't know that person, even if you thought you were starting to. You never got to get to know that person. Sure, it might sting a little. And for a few weeks, you might hear a new song, you might see something funny, you might come across some cool thing you've read and think...oh, I bet that person would dig that. But that's all it is, just a bet which you already know you've lost. But look, at least you went in on it in the first place. (So what if somehow you ended up making a collossal ass of yourself?) That's saying something...because for too long there, all bets were off.

And now, here comes Christmas and then the new year. I don't even know why I kept that damn Halloween pumpkin as long as I did.