Smile for the Camera, Goobs

I have, still mostly in my head, a storyline expounding on “We Are Amazing,” except with different names and a much better understanding of who exactly the “We” are. I’m a sucker for stories about lonely people, so it’s my self-declared challenge to give in and 1.) write about a boy essentially orphaned by the divorce of his parents, but 2.) from the perspective of his idiotically happy dog. I typed up some of their story in Microsoft Word one night and, though I liked what I wrote, I knew immediately that the short string of scenes were useless to me; at least for the longer story. Instead of privately purging them from my system, here’s a public and mostly context-less piece of something that will be fleshed out quite differently on the same bat-channel, some other bat-time.

Fair warning: my intention wasn’t to feel out their characters or any similarly useful purpose. I wrote this to make myself sad.


Smell Ya Later, Goobs!

Turns Out There’s a Reason FOREVER ALONE is a Popular Internet Meme

Last Sunday night my loneliness got to me. Most days I can find a lot of contentment in singleness (the greatest advantage of which is the fact that I have no one to answer to but myself; if I want to go out and do something at the drop of a hat I can), but once every month or so the absolute alone-ness of my existence just crushes me. I was so sad, in fact, that I actually typed “I’m going to die alone” in Google search, because Google cares deeply about my emotional wellbeing.

(I can’t believe I’m admitting to this. But stick with me.)

Search result #1 was an article from Cosmopolitan, titled “18 Signs You’re Going to Die Alone.” Now, I dislike Cosmopolitan; first by instinct, and second for more practical reasons – on principle, and because the woman one homeowner before me never informed the mail wizards at Cosmopolitan that she’d moved. Though she’s clearly dodging her financial troubles by refusing to inform anyone of her change in address, she can somehow still afford a lifelong subscription to one of the dirtiest magazines you can buy in a grocery store checkout line. No. No I do not want to know how to drive him wild, and I especially don’t want to find out while standing behind the mom with three kids under four and in front of the seventy year old lady reshuffling her coupons for the sixteenth time.

Mind you, it wouldn’t bother me so much if a) they gave up after the first dozen “NO LONGER LIVES HERE” notices I’ve sent back to them, and b) I wasn’t the kind of overly self-conscious person that worries about what her mailman thinks of her. It bothers me that he may think I want Cosmopolitan delivered to my house now that I’ve given up returning to sender (never mind that he’s almost certainly never thought about it). So normally I’d forget that noise and move on.

Unfortunately, I’d hit a rather low point in my evening by then and I was looking to cry over anything, including any or all of the 18 signs that I might be exhibiting. Not that I’d set a lot of store by Cosmopolitan come sunrise (my mood always improves with daylight), but if I wanted to really mourn, I’d do it thoroughly. Was I destined to be forever alone? I had to know. So I clicked on the link.

This greeted me:

The article only got better after that. Probably because Sign #8 (When the sun is setting and there’s a bit of a breeze and you feel alone but content and you decide to stop looking for The One*) was absurdly familiar, only it had been 11 at night and I could just make out the Milky Way, which always makes me feel tragically poetic. According to the article, “this moment probably feels really profound right now, but that’s just because you’re overtired…you will forget about this by lunchtime next Wednesday.” What a blow to discover that Cosmopolitan, of all magazines, had my number. Follow that up with a Reddit thread discussion that clocks in as search result number 3 (in which I read what I would sound like if I actually admitted these things on a public forum; if there’s anything that can sober a moment of melodrama it’s finding out that my ghost of teenager past isn’t even original), and at that point I had absolutely no choice but to laugh at myself.

That had to have been the most cathartic Google search I’ve ever experienced. Honestly, now I kind of wish this is just how Google always responded to this particular query:

I spent the rest of the evening on YouTube, cheerfully listening to the same two piano compositions over and over again, because until I can afford a piano I have to practice using Professor Harold Hill’s think system**. I’ll admit, I’ve had more productive evenings. But I had a good one, which, considering that I’d been prepped to weep all night, was productive enough.

Now there was a segue that really didn’t belong. Anyways (and as always): same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Never mind that it’s never the same Bat-time. I’ll try to have something of creative worth on the next go round.


*I don’t actually believe in “The One.” I do believe that passion, compatibility, and emotions have their place, but I also know that love has as much – if not more – to do with the choices we make rather than the feelings we feel.

** For the uninitiated, Harold Hill is a conman in one of my go-to musicals***, in which he gets around knowing neither how to read music nor how to play any of the instruments he just sold to every boy in town (with the promise that he would teach them how to play) by instructing his students to simply think the Minuet in G over and over again until they can play it. I’ll let you know how it works out for me.

***For the record, “The Sound of Music” is my favorite musical of all time and I’ve never bothered ranking the rest; but if I did, “The Music Man” would be somewhere near the top.