Wanted: One Empty Nest

I don’t have kids and I don’t want any. There…I said it.

That doesn’t mean that I’m kid “unfriendly” in a – “take them to a remote location and leave them for dead” kind of way – I would just prefer to view them from behind glass or some other safe enclosure. My mom used to tell me that she didn’t particularly like children. You would think that would suck a little since in fact, she had two – but in actuality it wasn’t that bad. My sister and I ended up with a mom who didn’t have to live vicariously through us – hanging on our every word, and telling her friends how smart we are because at 9 years old we managed to figure out the whole tooth fairy farce on our own. No – my mom is a realist, she believes in telling it like it is. I admire her for that.

When I was a kid the word “everyone” was a forbidden term. I used it frequently to expose her backward, hillbilly way of thinking. When I wanted a phone in my room – “everyone” had one but me. When I wanted to stay up past ten o’clock on a school night – “everyone” else was getting to. Everyone had a pool, everyone had bunk beds, and everyone had a mom who let them spend the night in a cemetery because it’s fun. I never got the penguin I wanted either.

My mother would just stand there calmly letting me ramble on with my evidence of “everyone,” before rolling her eyes and sighing… “Who exactly is everyone Melissa? How is it that you have come to know everyone hmm?? Then she would pull a National Geographic from the bookshelf and flip it open to the middle before shoving it under my nose. “How about these people here?? I suppose you believe that each one of them has a 1500 gallon salt water aquarium with sea otters as well? They don’t even have pants Melissa.”
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Who Said That?!

Your memory.

It isn’t just the elderly that suffer from memory loss – friends, loved ones, and myself included are a brain cell away from a rousing discussion about the sinking of the Titanic as if it happened yesterday.

Just a few days ago, my partner Ang, looked me straight in the eye and gave me the most convincing and passionate speech of her lifetime – except I had just told her the same thing only a few days prior. She re-tells my own jokes to me saying, ” So and so at work told me the funniest thing yesterday!” Aaaah, yeah… that was me.

Not that I need “props” or anything, but it is a little disturbing to see her doey-eyed face telling me my own jokes as if they were carved from some untouched region of her brain. I imagine her later years, in a nursing home, filled with enormous adventure and wonder as she discovers a half-empty box of paper clips and claims them as her own creation. Later….she will barge through the doors of the dining hall, her muppet arms flailing wildly as she maniacally spouts the details of her discovery. The other residents, taken by surprise, will drop their jello cups in unison and stare, mouths open, in confused wonder.

On that day, paper clips will become a hot commodity among the barely living.

Forever Lost On LOST

I have been a loyal and religious follower of LOST since the very first episode. Not only have I seen every single episode but in many cases I’ve seen them twice – including the episodes with the helpful tickers at the bottom of the screen. And yet. I remain as clueless as the day I wandered onto the island – I guess it isn’t done with me yet.

By the time the season finale airs, I will probably be sitting in the corner of my living room singing the greatest hits of Boxcar Willie and eating my own hair.

It has been 6 years of unending; reality altering questions. Are the writers looking for US to write the ending? Is that why we have 16 different threads going at one time? It’s like participating in a weekly Rorschach test for an hour – sometimes Locke looks like the devil sometimes it’s Jacob. Lets just recap very quickly what we know:

(1) There have definitely been some psychological experiments taking place as we have learned more about the Dharma Initiative.
(2) Women can’t seem to stay pregnant on the Island (except for Claire who is mentally unstable and in need of a bath)
(3) People seem to be cured of illnesses and handicaps and in some cases brought from the dead – honestly??
(4) The Island moves – no less – by the use of a really big wheel located in an icy tundra (now its starting to piss me off).
(5) Jacob annoyingly answers a question with a question which makes me want to fly into the TV and pluck out his eyes.
(6) The “Smoke Monster” aka “Locke” can kill people – how you ask?? Smoke inhalation….just by being scary…what is he DOING exactly?? Just the fact that I am talking seriously about a show with a “smoke monster” makes me feel like an moron.
(7) Everyone is time traveling and have somehow come to the conclusion that if they set off this atomic bomb they found on the island, then they can reset time. (I now realize that I am the biggest freaking idiot and I should have all sharp objects removed from my vicinity).
(8) Everyone lives in an alternate reality but only Desmond is aware of it – however, in this alternate reality he has located the other main characters and is “waking them up” to this fact. (FYI – I think I am beginning to lose all sense of cohesion in my life. I have started writing “Worm Holes For Dummies” but I keep getting hung up on the part about worms being asexual).
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