February 10 - Blanche and Me

I used to imagine that if I sang the right songs someone would hear the lyrics and realize that it was a cry for help.  Not that I had the right songs (which might have been the problem).  There aren’t songs for an overly anxious 16 year old.  The kind of 16 year old who falls in love like Oscar Wao and copes with that love like his sister Lola.  That’s something most people don’t know about me. I usually say it’s because I have trouble holding down the emotional side of a relationship, but actually it’s because I don’t even know where to start with the emotional side.  I mean, what can you do about wanting to bend unconditionally to the person to whom you are unequivocally devoted?  Anyway, it’s complicated.  But now I just spend all my time with my new best friend.  We agree on so many things it’s remarkable.  Well, “able to be remarked upon” is an entirely inadequate statement but this is English, and I’m a teenager; so it’ll have to do.  The thing is, Blanche has a lot going for her.  I wish I had her figure.  Maybe if alcohol was my vice – not food – I’d be that lucky, but I’m not.  But she had a thing going for her when she started her “hydrotherapy”.  There’s nothing like sitting immobile in a bathtub with the water running from the shower on “hot as a thousand fiery suns” and not moving.  For half an hour.  It’s great.  And I think she figured out something when she said that the opposite of death is desire.  I won’t quote her, because those weren’t her exact words, but she had the idea and I did steal that.  The opposite of death is desire.  So now I guess I just quote her when I want people to realize that I need a Shep to take me sailing.  And I guess I’ll just tell people in my will that I want to die at sea, so that they can tip me into the azure waters in a perfectly white blanket to be embraced by the waves.