Not Eloquent At All

After it happened, I sat in the hospital lobby for about two hours, mainly because I had forgotten how to walk. Then I sat in my car in the parking lot of a strip mall for another two.

After that, I got a hotel room, and I sat in a warm bath as long as I could. Then I curled up naked on top of the bedcovers, thinking that maybe if I closed my eyes and stayed there long enough, he'd show up and crawl into bed behind me. I waited until my whole body was shaking from the cold. And then I waited some more.

He never showed up.

This Is Wonderful

The world has a nemesis.

Well, if not the world, then at least the country. And I don't mean my own personal nemesis. While I have been mentioned on their website, I know that I'm not awesome enough to be, you know, a personal adversary. No, no, this is a nemesis all of us need to keep an eye on.

They're called Kansas Kountry Khurch.

Shaking the Family Tree

So I have this thing. It's called pleurisy. Basically, pleurisy is when you have an infection in the lining of your lungs, so that when you breathe, the pleura kind of pulls away from the rest of the lung. It results in a stabbing feeling every time you inhale. For reals. It's like getting stabbed with a knife, in your lung, every time you inhale. You can try to keep your breaths really shallow to avoid it, but you also can't sustain that for a long time, so sooner or later, you know, you're going to get stabbed.

It ain't so fun.

A Life More Ordinary

It's only maybe a week since I've allowed myself to put my guard down.

Really, I should say since I resigned myself to having my guard down. I don't have a choice in the matter. I'm so exhausted and fragile right now that really, the only choice is whether to leave the house or never leave the house. Since I enjoy earning a paycheck, I've opted for leaving the house defenseless and weak. But I thought at least it might help me figure out what happens in ordinary life--life without aliases and disguises and alter egos, without SuperPowers and nemeses and getaway cars.

So far, I've only discovered one major thing that happens when a girl walks around with her guard down: guys hit on her like there's no tomorrow. Seriously, dudes are crawling out of the woodwork to sling some mack on me. And we're not talking your expected alcohol-fueled party flirting, or the closing time move-in-for-the-kill. I'm talking about, like, on the street, you know? At the Quality Dairy. When I'm walking to class. It's like one of the scenes from Dawn of the Dead where you see all the zombies outside the mall trying to get in to murder the living, only replace "zombies" with "strange dudes looking to get laid". It's frickin' ridiculous.

Rescue Me

I've fallen down on the job, my babies.

For reals.

The last few months...I don't know.

Transitions are so rough. So, I left South Central and moved up here to Rust City, and everything was so different. Rust City is a great place and all--no complaints here--but it's so different from South Central that I think I got the culture shock. I mean, once the initial distractions of moving and unpacking and junk fell away, I started having a bit of a panic. The panic of realizing I was basically alone in a new city--once again, a girl completely on her own. I mean, there are folks here in Rust City I can call in the case of an emergency, folks that I can count on for the occasional work lunch and once-a-month knees-up at a karaoke bar in the country, but there's no one local that's really a part of my everyday life, you know? No one I can call up after work to chat about the crazy things that happened that day. No one to plan strange art projects with. No one to cause trouble with. No one to go to concerts. Or on road trips. Or watch movies. Or stay up all night with and have those conversations you only have at 3am. You know, just no one.

A Harsh Mistress

It's time for me to say that I think it's really funny when people stumble across this blog because they're looking for Fat Girl Porn. (I'm lookin' at you, Slovenia!) I can see the arc of anticipation, realization, and disappointment that ultimately leaves the searchers on the Mountain of No Joy.

Sorry, boys. Desire is a harsh mistress.

One Angry Girl

I know what it’s like when I get like this.

Angry. Frustrated. It doesn’t take a genius. Self-awareness isn’t a superpower—it just takes a little paying attention. And once you start paying attention to what you’re like, you can’t *stop* paying attention what you’re like. The thing about awareness is, once you got it, you got it. You know?

A little distinction here. It’s no surprise to anyone that I get pissed, because hey, if I had never been pissed, my SuperHero identity never would have been revealed. Great Big Girl would never have been born without the injustices that demanded her creation. So sure, I get filled with the Righteous Indignation or Touched with The Fire, and everybody’s seen that. And really, when The Fire is on me, I mainly get one of two reactions. Either the witnesses think, “Hey, the girl is right—that is unjust”, or they laugh. Because I feel The Fire with my whole body, and I can’t hide it, and I “Grrrrr!” and I shake my angry fist, and I open my throat and push the air up from the bottom of my lungs for the dramatic, emphatic, “That. Is. So. Wrong. I could. Fall. Down.” Yeah, I know. It’s not an act, though—it’s totally sincere. But people tend to think it’s funny.

I guess I can't time travel after all...

I can't stop looking at this picture and thinking about the day I took it. Everything was so peaceful and strange and perfect. I've been closing my eyes and trying to transport myself back there, but...nothing. I can't transport myself back a minute, let alone months back and thousands of miles away.

I'm searching for something. And I don't think all the charm and soothing telephone voices and magical push-up bras in the world will help me find it.

The Oracle Has Spoken

Sometimes you're hot.

And sometimes you're so hot, you can hardly stand it. That's me for the last few days. Like Friday, I was trying to unpack the books in my un-air-conditioned office, in my un-air-conditioned workplace, and I had a moment of intense, visceral understanding of the word "sweltering". I only managed to dump out the contents of a few boxes before I was stripped down to my tank top, sweating, sticking my face in front of my tiny office fan, trying to keep my makeup from sweating off. It didn't work. And it didn't take me long to decide that rather than pass out from heat stroke and risk having a new colleague find me inert on the floor like a freshman at a frat party--which wouldn't be the greatest first impression--I should go home to try to lower my body temperature. Which didn't really work, anyway.

So the last few days, I've been hot...that hot that is so hot you don't even want to shower because the effort of hair-washing will create heat that will outweigh the cooling effects of the water...that wear-no-clothes, don't-move-much, close-your-eyes-and-think-of-winter kind of hot. Just hot.

The Secrets of the Universe

I needed to read a book.

Like you do, you know? I needed to read a book. So I went over to the shelf, and I wasn't really making a conscious choice. My hand just reached out of its own accord and selected my old copy of Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels. I probably hadn't read it in five, six, seven years, and really couldn't remember much about it, but my hand made a beeline for it.

I stick the book in my bag and head off to an appointment. I'm sitting in a waiting room, break out the book, and crack it open. Inside the book, I find a little note that I had written for myself years and years ago. It said:

Tell The Truth Faster.

I lost my breath. It was exactly what I needed to hear. That place, that day, that moment...exactly what I needed.

Then I knew--my younger self left this for me. I left this for myself years ago so that I could discover it at this exact moment. Because at this exact moment, I need to remember to tell the truth faster.

How could I possibly know that? . . . Unless I have unlocked the secrets of the Universe. Time travel, anyone?

Hansel, my brother, where are you now?

When I think of the road that has finally gotten me to the Gingerbread Cottage, I kind of can't believe I'm even here. With the exceptions of the summers on the road, I think about the last two years in South Central, and I can't believe I made it out. Or made it out alive, I should say. It was a two-year fight, and one that almost bested me, really, because it wasn't the upfront, honest fight of hero vs. villain. It wasn't a Wild West shootout with the White Hats against the Black Hats. South Central almost beat me because there wasn't a clear opponent at all; the opponent was the entire space--geographical, yes, but political, social, psychic. And that ain' a fair fight. It was like living inside the genre of literary naturalism where the environment is actively trying to beat you down...and really, in which the environment always wins. (That's naturalism for ya.)

So instead of duking it out with a clear-cut opponent, it was like fighting phantoms--impossible to see, but I knew they were there. Because they were there. So I spent nearly every day fighting the appalling working conditions, fighting the vague but pervasive disapproval of the town (um, and of the region), fighting the overwhelming isolation, fighting the rumor and innuendo about the only young, single female professor on campus, fighting the stifling restrictions I placed on my own personality due to the social pressures of the town. That's so much fighting, you know? So much resistance. It can wear a girl out after a while.

Home Invasion

Holy crap, yo.

The monsters of the forest are invading the Gingerbread Cottage. And while a SuperHero, I deal exclusively in human (or corporate) villains. So I am thrown. Here's the scoop:

Early, early this morning--3am, to be exact--just when I was thinking of shuffling off to bed, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. At first I think it's just the shadows from the blades of the ceiling fan, but there's an energy about the shadow, an insistence, you know...a charge. Like the feeling you get when someone is staring at you--you suddenly realize you're not alone. So I lift my head to fully look, and I saw that this was not a shadow at all, but a big-ass bat frantically circling the living room at top speed. 3 am. A big-ass bat. Holy crap.

The Shield of Individuality

I'll start with a little note: it's looking like the newest posts are all going to be In The Now for a little while, since there has been some talk (not by me) of turning The Year of Living Electronically into a book. As I was told, "You do not give that story away for free." So we'll see what happens with it, but until then, I'm keeping the South Central Diaries off the InterWebs.

And back to The Now...

Right. So, all my sweet, sweet babies know that I have now officially moved to Rust City, a mid-sized, industrial city in the Midwest--a political center with its fair share of sketch, a city with more grime than glitter. And I show up in Rust City in a bit of a frenzy and more than a little disorganized. I had less than a week to pack up my place in South Central and hit the road, so I arrived here with a giant-ass moving truck full of stuff, yes, but without having forwarded my mail, or cancelling my TV, or setting up up things like a phone or the internet at the new headquarters.

Where this leaves me is driving around in a new city that is about 114 times the size of South Central, trying to find a place with free WiFi. The closest place? Panera Bread. This makes me crabby on a number of levels, but sometimes a girl has to swallow her pride in exchange for free access to the InterWebs. So here's me, minding my own business, plundering the free WiFi in the frinkin' Panera Bread in Rust City and trying to suck up all the air conditioning I can before returning to the stifling humidity outside.

In the Now: ...reunited...?

Yeah, so, getting temporarily captured by that trickster The Raven was really only the start of it that weekend, you know, when the Genius Patrol got back together. There were other...incidents, let's say...that stood out as Moments That Are Now Officially "Stories"--ones that not only will I be reminded of later, but that the others will tell about me--to each other, to new folks I introduce them to or that they introduce me to--as examples, you know, of what happens when one is around me. So the events at Das Bier Boot (and the colorful text message documentation of it): story. The encounter with the security guard regarding my ID while waiting in line to get into the only late-night liquor store in A Town Near You: story. The unexpected demand for bunting, followed my my immediate extraction of eight yards of red-and-white striped seersucker from my car: story. As I was told repeatedly that weekend: "It's always a story when we go out with you."

And my line of thinking is, well sure, but isn't it always a story when you go out with any SuperHero? And since everyone in the Genius Patrol is a SuperHero, shouldn't that make the events of this weekend, in fact, your basic, daily events? When you think about it, heroes are constantly on a Mission; they are constantly operating on a level if not above than at least other than "normal", mundane, daily existence. We are maintaining the front of a "normal", mundane, daily existence to give us the freedom to pursue our ultimate super-human goals: to champion the underdog; to spread the love; to get your girls' backs; to demand justice for the pink-collar worker. Each SuperHero has her own mission, but whatever it is, fighting for that goal takes you places you wouldn't otherwise go in life, right? It requires bravery and acts of derring-do. It requires steadfast determination and commitment to your calling, no matter what the cost. It requires venturing into the seedy underbelly of your current city or even into the lair of The Raven. Being a SuperHero automatically creates a life that goes far beyond, you know, mowing the lawn and getting groceries and reading the newspaper and discussing the best place to get sushi. The adventurous life is the necessary by-product of the Mission.

Isn't it?

In the Now: Genius Patrol--REUNITED!!!!

With the Genius Patrol, it always starts like this:

"Hey Lulu, do you remember the time you..."

And what inevitably follows is a long, embarrassing story that may involve any--or more likely, a combination of--the following: random nudity; falling down; mistaken identity; wheelchairs; knee pads; swearing like a sailor in the most inappropriate setting possible; hysterical laughter that turns into shrieks of abject terror; sweet-talking bartenders, security guards, or police; knocking over large tables of glassware; getting physically trapped in unusual spaces; strange animal encounters; drive-by catcalls by homeless men on bicycles; make-out parties; corset-related injuries; shopping for bull emasculators; stumbling out of vehicles like a loaded rock star; road trips that end up in the exact place you do not want to end up; flirtations with fire-eaters at fetish clubs; strangers who offer to give me lavender bubble baths; people falling off bluffs; kidnapping by bank robbers; and so on, and so on, and so on.

It's always like that. And not without reason, I suppose.

In the Now: SuperHeroes Never Get A Vacation

Great Big Girl defends A Town Near You from any and all types of villains...

The Year of Living Electronically: An Introduction

The time has come, my sweet, sweet babies.

Those of you in the Genius Patrol, as well as my trusted associates from A Town Near You, already know that sometimes a girl has a lot going on. And when that girl is also a SuperHero, fighting evil at every turn while simultaneously trying to keep her true identity under wraps, that "a lot" turns into A LOT. Because really, then she's working double time. She may be struggling along with four new class preps each semester (You heard it, my babies--four new class preps every single frickin' semester) while simultaneously scouring the county for the most notorious villains, lurking about shadowy corners, abandoned barns, and highway Welcome Centers. She may be grading her way through a stack of research papers while also masterminding a spectacularly stylish plan to topple a tyrannical regime. She may be desperately trying to escape from captivity in a SuperVillain's lair in an undisclosed location so that she can get to rehearsal on time...and all the while maintaining her two separate lives so that no one ever suspects who she truly is.

That's a lot of work, yo. That's more work than you could shake a proverbial stick at.

From the Great Big Girl Archives, Part the Third: The Fall of Little Bully

Sometimes a SuperHero hits bottom. Rock bottom. Bottom-of-the-frickin'-Grand-Canyon bottom. And as she's sailing towards the hard earth at a rate of 9.8 meters/second (squared), the main thing on her mind is, "How did I get here?"

It's all so simple:

1 Woman. 2 Identities.

First, the mild-mannered Lulu O'Brien--aspiring artist, aspiring educator; fond of new ideas, clever plans, funny people, staying up late, checking it out; known to smile a lot and laugh loudly; partial to puppies, kittens, little yellow chicks and other baby animals; in short, a friend to all. Well, or almost all. She's not a total Pollyanna.

Second, the SuperHero Great Big Girl: Feminine Avenger! Great Big Girl: Pink Collar Hero! Righting the wrongs done to her sisters! Fighting the injustice of the pink-collar life! Demanding that The Man get his dirty jackboot off her fabulously accessorized neck! (For a complete list of extraordinary powers, see entry #2. I mean after all, it's a narrative, people.)

From the Great Big Girl Archives, Part the Second: Ain' Nothin' So Sad as a SuperHero on the Skids...

Listen up, my little lambs: there ain' nothin' so sad as a SuperHero on the skids.

Seriously, yo. Great Big Girl has hit the rocks.

Let's go back a little ways...I had high hopes for the whole situation. There I was, mild-mannered receptionist Lulu O'Brien, newly freed from the evil clutches of her nemesis Little Bully at The Company only to fall into another pink-collar trap: adjunct teaching at community colleges. There I was, fresh-faced and optimistic, ready to spread the joy of learning throughout the Introduction to Theatre sections at Hometown CC, and through the Composition 1 sections of Kountry Kollege. There I was, a newly-minted Ph.D. with a spring in her step, a song in her heart, and a passion for arts and letters...only to discover that the world of community college adjuncting was not the utopian escape I thought it would be.

From the Great Big Girl Archives: Poor Pixie's Come and Gone

It was bound to happen sooner or later; I was just hoping for later. I know man, yeah, all good things come to an end and twilight is golden and the last of the summer wine and all the blabbity you want to stick in there, but I've been absolutely dreading this moment.

My car has finally died.

So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to take a moment to honor the life of the charcoal gray Honda Accord LX known as Pixie 21.