Cross dressing is dangerous business
I am told I should write. I am told that I would be a good writer. So I decided to get some books from the library on great writing and I decided to start writing. But when it came to what topic to choose from, it seemed there were many, but not even one topic would stretch to 200 pages of writing. That was for sure. Should I write about crossdressers, or a stinky vagina. The topics were endless. I decided then lets go into short stories. It doesn’t have to be a mystery, it just has to have a sense of ending.
“I am a cross-dresser. Will you marry me?” He said, with a hopeful look on his face.
I know I shouldn’t have laughed in his face. I am the kind of person who does things when they know they should not have. I am the kind of person who doesn’t have an ounce of common sense or etiquette. I never know when to save face and sit down. I don’t know when to speak up and not back down. I just am a hopeless case. The only time I feel at all suitably good at the task at hand, is when I am reading a book on a comfortable sofa in my condo on the twelfth floor of a building downtown Toronto. Then, I can imagine as much as I want, I don’t have to worry about picking my nose delicately. Or scratching my bum, when its feeling a tad itchy. I can just sit and read, and eat whenever the feeling overcomes me, and then just go back to reading.
I do not know why he had wanted to marry me. I am just a fool to believe that he would have just taken his sorry-looking face and just gotten lost. Which I said in a fit of fear that he would take my astonishment to be assent.
Because he did not take himself away to another country and fall in love with someone else. How did I know that, you ask?
Its because I have been getting anonymous letters in the mail asking me to die. The handwriting seemed to be suspiciously like his. But because I am a generous soul, I decided to double-check.
After a few hours of ruminating, I decided the best way to get to him would be through his mother.
Unfortunately, I should have seen the signs of him being a mummy’s darling, when he took me to see his mother on our first date.
She was sitting there staring me down, with a big wart on her nose. Finally, she humped in a sound of approval.
He sighed with relief, and in private, told me, he doesn’t marry anyone who his mother doesn’t approve. I should have taken that as a hint that he was not to be trusted.
Then, I realized someone was following me around. This is where I am sitting on a tree, waiting for him to pass by under me, so I can throw something on the person I think is following me. Then, he will faint due to the hit on the head, and I can check the identity of the person.
I realized a few minutes later, that there is a squirrel sitting on the tree next to me, quite unafraid of me. I wondered if it was one of those crazy psycho-squirrels who drink the blood of unsuspecting humans. I read somewhere once, that squirrels are just rats with very good public relations. I thought it was hilarious.
I heard my victim come below me, and without thinking or looking if it was in fact my victim, I threw the stone on his head.
Thud, it went, exactly as it does in the comic books, and I jumped out from the tree, surprisingly myself with my nimbleness.
I peered down at the face of the person who I had just rendered unconscious. It wasn’t the face of my ex-boyfriend or ex-fiancee, if you want to get into specific details. I guess, I did’t really tell you that I told him ‘yes, I will marry you,’ in a fit of confusion, after which I told him to get lost.
Maybe he was entitled to his craziness.
I took the person’s pulse and saw that she was still alive.
I didn’t really know her, but I knew she wouldn’t be happy when she would awaken. She looked like a mean person. With henna-dyed hair and a caftan as a dress, she looked kind of eccentric. So I decided to scuttlebug out of there.
I sat down in the sofa in my house, and decided to ruminate on my thoughts. I wasn’t getting anywhere with my enquiries into who wrote those anonymous letters.
I decided to make a list of everyone who hates me. I tried to be objective about it, and write down everyone who might hate me.
The following is what I came up with:
Tina, the laundry person.
John, my ex-boss.
Sid, my ex-fiancee.
Halley, my ex-girlfriend.
Sheela, my ex-roomate.
Amy, my mother’s sister.
It wasn’t an extensive list, it seemed quite short to me, as i have lived on this planet for 35 years. I would have expected more people to hate me having lived as long.
Each one of the above hate me for a very specific reason, and I don’t know if I come out well in any of the stories that I might tell you. I decided to think about the stories and try to get some clues as to why they would send anonymous letters to me.
The one thing that struck me as it might have struck you, is the list contains a series of ex-es, ex this and ex that. Should I be alarmed by that? Hmm, I let my brain muddle around with that thought for a bit.
Firstly I thought about Tina, who had been my beloved laundry lady for six long years. I had first started going to her, when I first got out of university after my second degree. That was another case of confusion, when I decided I didn’t like my first degree subjects and decided to take a whole new degree. By the time, I graduated I was 29 years old. Long, I know.
One day, I went into pick some stuff up from Tina’s place. Tina was a sweet Vietnamese lady, who seemed to be pregnant most of the six years that I had known her. She would be smoking a cigarette with one hand, while she patted the many children that roamed around in the store. She seemed like a very loving mother and I was sure the children adored her. She seemed to adore the clothes that she laundered as much she adored having babies.
Unfortunately, that day, she did not adore the white jeans that I gave into launder. They were ruined. Absolutely ruined. I was devastated. I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. My only white jeans, and gone. They would have to be thrown into a garbage. They had rips across the front, and they were blue in patches on the bum. I looked at Tina, with what I hoped was a evil glint. I was mad, and I wanted her to know that. I looked at her, and she looked at me defiantly.
I knew then, that she was going to argue that the white jeans had been like this from the beginning. She was not going to back down and I felt sad for her, lying so blatantly. It sickened me. I spit on the floor in front of the counter and I began.
“ Tina, the pants are ruined. I hope you are not going to charge me for them.”
“ I charge 10 dollars. That is the total for two pants laundry.”
I couldn’t believe it. Was she stupid? Did she think I did not notice the ruined pants. I guess she saw the look on my face. Because she started babbling about her children, pretending nothing has happened and this is every other day where I ask about the gaggle of children at her feet and sometimes at my feet.
“ Tina, I said, the pants are ruined. Either you reimburse me for the value of the pants or I am never coming back to your laundry.”
She looked around her as if I might be talking to someone else. I was so mad, I was ready to burst.
“ And, if you don’t reimburse me, I will ruin your store, by telling everyone about your horrible work. You will lose all your customers.”
You can guess what happened. I did not mean for it to happen, but I blabbed about this to a friend of mine who was a journalist, and before I knew it, a whole expose on this laundry was in the newspaper. Tina was ruined and she blamed me for it, understandably. I sent her a few apologies, but she slashed them with a red lipstick saying ‘You are ded. I kill you’ and sent it back to me.
Again, I laughed the incident off hoping it would make me seem strong.
I was sitting on my favorite couch in my condo, when I heard someone outside my door. Being paranoid, I decided to switch on my cellphone and have it ready to dial 911, in one hand, while I opened the door with the other. I realized that it was a friend of mine from high school that I hadn’t seen in the longest time. Wow, it was a long while since I had seen her.
I opened the door for her and she sat down in the couch, smiling at me. I started talking about the last time I saw her.
I think the last time I saw her was when… Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.
I realized too late that the last time I had seen her was when I insulted her in front of the whole school telling them about the fact that she is a hermaphrodite. She had lived four years in that school being poked by people and ostracized because she had been stupid enough to tell me her secret. Me, wanting to be cool, told her secret to people.
While, she was hitting me with the sharp knife that she had bought out just for this special occasion, I guessed rightly that she must have been the one who was sending me the anonymous letters.
Hmm, I missed the boat on that one, I thought, as I drifted off to death.
My story
I imagine the trees in their underwear. I like thinking that it helps me be superior to them. so when I go to a forest and I have to perform, in terms of pee, while I am camping, I like to imagine the trees in their underwear. Then, I don’t have performance anxiety, and I can pee freely. The good thing about this camping trip is that we rented out cabins. The heat wasn’t on, and the snow was falling freely outside, but I was still happy that we were indoors.
I went upstairs, because it was getting late in the morning, it was already 8am, and I hadn’t shown them my face. The people would start having an unrest. That would be unavoidable, at the end of the day when they were a bit under the bottle, but for right now, I would like to keep some kind of peace going. I was dressed in my pyjamas, sweat pants, and tanktop, with my bare arms hanging out in all their glory. My mum always used to tell me that I have great arms, so that’s why I wore sleeveless things, and wasn’t ashamed of having bulges. So much of what my self image is about, comes from my mother its surprising. It’s a good thing, she has some good things to say, otherwise, I would never have anything good to say about myself and my body.
As I went upstairs, I noticed, that a lot of the masses were still sleeping. There were a few of my aunts and uncles standing around, and sitting around, some preparing tea for the others.
I asked about my parents, where they were, and I was told that they had both gone for a walk. I was surprised.
“You mean, they have gone for a walk together. “
“No, no, your mum has gone for a walk with Mehta aunty and your dad has gone for a walk with Danny uncle.” Sarita aunty says, smiling.
Oh, that makes much more sense, I think to myself, not wanting to articulate it out loud.
Dammit, I thought ot myself, now all my effort, in getting up early and coming out, is wasted. They wont even know when I woke up.
Well, if they wont know when I woke up, and I am already in trouble, let me just go back downstairs and go back to sleep, I thought gleefully.
Alas, it was not to be.
“ Shelly, come here for a second. Let me give you some work. You have been lazing around all weekend.” Sarita aunty said, still smiling.
Umm, I thought that was what the meaning of a long weekend away in the countryside was supposed to entail. Weekend equals no work. Not wanting to go through all that with her, I just looked at her expectantly.
“ Go and cut some wood for the fireplace. I was dreaming about sitting in front of a real fireplace today.” She said, still smiling away, like the devil that she is.
I laughed at her joke. Because it had to be a joke. I mean, how could it not be a joke. Me cut some wood. Its true that I have really nice arms, and they look good in a sleeveless tee, and even better in a halter top, but what they are not useful for is doing any manual labor.
That’s where they draw the line. I’m pretty sure, I wouldn’t even be able to lift an axe.
I told Sarita aunty that and she pshawed me away and told me to stop whining and start chopping.
I was about to roll my eyes and say, you are not the boss of me, and walk away, but then, I realized what the whole point of this long weekend was.
My parents were trying to bring the whole community of friends that they have together, and stop all the fighting, petty, fighting that has been going on for the past few weeks. If they hear that the first fight of the long weekend was caused by their dearly beloved daughter, I would soon be six feet under.
I walked outside, and immediately walked back in.
“ What happened?” Sarita aunty asked, and I replied, “ I need a sweater, its freezing outside.”
Ah, the joys of a Canadian summer. I mean, its June, and its still freezing outside. Admittedly, tis early morning, but still, summer, should be summer, all throughout the day, it shouldn’t discriminate by time of day.
I put on a bulky sweater, and some sturdy shoes, and walked out again, determined this time nothing would deter me.
Standing outside, looking at all the trees around me, I scratched my head.
Hmm, I thought to myself. okay… there are a lot of trees around me, and there’s the axe sitting there innocently by that pile of wood. How do I make this happen?
I sat down on a tree stump and I admitted to myself that I was flummoxed. I had no idea how to begin this task. But being that I am an MBA student, and we like challenges. We thrive on challenges, or that’s what we are told, I decided to analyze the situation, make a pros and cons list, and work from there. I went back inside the house to get some paper.
I went around the back way, so that I would avoid Sarita aunty’s evil eye.
After about half an hour, of working on some pros and cons lists, and filling up a whole paper with my musings and some doodling, I decided to venture back out again.
This time, I would do it for sure. I had a plan, I had a piece of paper with my list on it in my pocket, and I was a leader.
Leaders don’t get flummoxed. They don’t deliberate over decisionmaking. They initiate and they execute. I gave myself a nice pep talk, and lifted up the axe, almost falling over in the process.
Damn, why did they have to make the axes so heavy. I asked God, or the general vicinity, which would be the squirrel sitting in that little cushy spot of his. I bet he didn’t have to deal with crazy aunt’s requests.
I lifted the axe again when I heard my mum’s voice, yelling, “ What the heck do you think you are doing? Put that thing down and come in for breakfast.” Then she started muttering about how she had a crazy daughter, always doing crazy things. she grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me inside.
I tried explaining what I was doing, but she wasn’t listening. So I gave up. I mean, who was I to argue against a greater power that is my mother. Anyway, I really didn’t have anything going for me in the axe-using-tree-cutting department. I think I am a better manager and leader when it comes to spreadsheet analysis and market research. I felt a bit better at that and I dug into my cereal with gusto. It was Harvest Crunch after all and it was yummy. I used to lament about how well turned out the other girls are, with their hair nicely blowdried nad their designer clothing, and I realized finally I like the way I am. With everything, the unique clothing mixes that I have, and the hair all over the place, no make up, look that I do.
I’ve got the hiccups and damn they are painful. I must have swallowed some air with the food I inhaled.
I was standing in my gym, dressing up after my spinning class and I was just hit by the oddest assortment of conversations. There were three little girls, I mean, they were little cuties. They must have been 10 years old and this is how their conversation ran. By the way, they were dressing up to go swimming in the pool soon, I am guessing, cos they were in swimsuits.
“ You are dating.” One of kept on chanting in a really annoying fashion, meant to be annoying. She must have said it at least ten times. She was this little blonde chit of a girl, who must have been barely 10, and I wondered how does she even know what that word means, when at ten, I didn’t even know boys and girls were supposed to be friends. I used to think of them as these hateful creatures who always bullied me, and said, I couldn’t play sports with them, cso I was a girl.
“ I am not dating.” The other girl said adamantly, she seemed to me to be of Asian descent, really pretty, they were all really pretty girls. Going to break a lot of hearts, I thought to myself. but it seems they are already breaking hearts, in the casual way they chatted about dating.
“ You are dating.”
“ Oh, yeah, then what’s the name of the boy that I am dating?”
“ Umm….” After a silence of ten seconds, “ His name is Adam.” She said, triumphantly.
All of this time, the third girl, who was also blonde, was silent.
“ No, I am not dating.” She said annoyed.
One of the blondes who was taunting the other, left to do something in the bathroom, and the others started whispering.
“ The reason I said Adam, was that she said, she has a crush on a boy named Adam.”
The other girl came back at this point and said, “ Have you girls become friends, while I was gone? What are you talking about?”
“ I was just telling her that you had a crush on a boy named Adam.”
“ Yeah, I did, but now I have a crush on this other boy in this other class.”
“ YOU ARE DATING.” The girl screamed out in joy. I almost burst an eardrum.
“ I’m NOT dating.” The other girl said, annoyed.
And throughout this whole conversation, the other kept on pointing to my bum trying to get the others to see that I have ‘BLAH,BLAH,BLAH’, written on my underwear. She kept on saying ‘Never mind, I will tell you later’, everytime, I would turn around, to pick something from my bag.
I left soon after, as I was done dressing, but it just made me wonder, how backward, I really was. I mean, I thought, that with my ipod and my laptop, I am pretty cool and hip, but boy am I wrong? I am really backward. I am from the doonies. As backward as I could get. I mean, I started dating when I was 23, I mean, how uncool am I. God, I knew, I was uncool, but I didn’t know, I was uncooler than a bunch of 10 year olds. That is the height of patheticness.
I walked home to my apartment, and decided to take a long bath, to rub the stress away. only 25 and already under a surmountable amount of stress, when will this get better.
I got a frantic phone call from one of my buddies who works at Research in Motion when I got back home. Oh, well, so much for relaxing, I thought to myself as I picked up the phone.
“ My internet’s not working,” He said, almost crying. I could hear the sobs in his voice.
“ Calm down, take two deep breaths and tell me whats going on?” I said, getting ready to sit down for a long time.
“ Those bastards from the Rogers cable company came this morning, and started digging around in front of my house. And now….i have no internet.” He finished, with difficulty.
“So I’m sure they will fix it…” I said, taking a casual tone.
“ NO, THEY will not FIX it, as you say so casually.” He yelled. “ I am having a panic attack over here, and all you can say is that they will fix it. I have been on the phone with them for the past six hours, trying to talk to someone who is half competent that could deal efficiently with the situation so I could have my internet at home, on my day off. but the only person I could talk to all day, was this stupid girl, who said, that I am sorry, Sir, we can’t do anything about it, you have to call your cable company. And when I told her, I did call them, she told me, that she had to call the government who were the ones doing the digging. I mean, can you imagine.” He paused there, so I thought I should say something. But BEFORE, I could add anything, he kept on going, “ I mean, I can’t survive a whole day without Internet. I have internet at work, so I should be alright tomorrow, cos thank god tomorrow’s Monday, but I will go insane without internet for a whole day. I mean, what will I do? I have to check my email on Microsoft outlook, and I hate the interface of yahoo mail. I need to catch up on the Youtube videos and the stories on diggg.com, I mean, its so unfair. They have literally cut off my legs from beneath me, by taking away my interent. I can’t handle this injustice. I am going to…” And that’s when the phone cut off.
I tried calling him back, but I guess, he either got his internet connection back, or he was on hold with someone else, and they answered the call. I decided he would call me back if he needed to vent more.
I went back to setting up a nice bath for myself to relax.
What is up with people nowadays, I thought? As I settled down in my bath. I mean, does no one read a book anymore. does anyone even have the attention span to read a book. Nowadays all people talk about is the latest video blog (vlog) that they saw or the latest blog they read online. It seems to me that I am the only one who enjoys reading books. I love books, they are amazing. the thing that amazes me, is that I could be reading a book by a person who has been dead for the better part of a century, and I am sitting here, in my bathtub, reading words that are immortalized because they put them on this paper. And if there are still books, when my grand-niece is born, I bet, she would be able to read these books, and it would have been 200-300 years since they were written. Wow. That is immortalization in the ultimate sense.
I had a killer headache so I fell asleep, after a cup of strong tea. I decided I was never waking up again, or at least not until my headache went away. in the middle of the night, or what seemed like the middle of the night, with my eye patch on, I heard my phone ringing. I thought to myself, oh, it was must be mum calling about whether I am eating well or not. But it wasn’t, it was this guy I had just started dating, named Maten. He was asking me whether I was up already or not. I told him, I was now, indicating to him that I definitely was not a morning person. I liked him a lot, so I tried to bring back my bad mood, and behave more normally.
“ So, are you going to open the door for me, or not?” He said, with a smile in his voice. He was outside! I couldn’t believe it. I was really happy, that I was going to get to see him.
I opened the door for him, and he was standing there with a microwave in his hand. What the hell, I thought to myself.
“ Well,” he said, pushing into the house, “ you were complaining about not having a microwave the last time we were chatting, so I decided I would get you a microwave as your birthday present. Early birthday present,” he said, giving me a peck on the cheek.
While he was setting it up, I was still reeling from the effects of it. I mean, I agree microwaves aren’t worth a lot of money, but it was just the gesture behind it, the thoughtfulness, that really hit me. I wasn’t going to cry in front of him, so I decided to mumble about brushing my teeth and walked into the bathroom.
When I looked into the bathroom mirror, I thanked god, that I didn’t look like a monster when I woke up in the morning. I would have scared him off for sure then.
Walking out of there, looking reasonably alright, he told me to get ready.
“ Why? Where are we going?” I asked.
He just shook his head as if it were a surprise, and off we went, the day was beautiful, my hair was behaving itself and I had a gorgeous guy in a gorgeous car next to me. the day couldn’t get better. but it actually did. We went for breakfast in this seventies style diner.
We ate eggs with bacon and sausages, not caring about calories or anything related to it. I stuffed myself, and we just chatted about the stupidest of things, just laughing like idiots, kissing each other, more frequently than I ever did. I became part of the obnoxious couples group, the couple who display affection in public and people hate them and love them at the same time.
One of the jokes he told me, was “ How do you call an icecube that’s poked with a needle? Eyes(ice) hurting.” I know, it was bad, but so cute. I loved it.
I had to come back home and write in my laptop journal about it. “ I just had the best day ever, and its barely 1pm.” I wrote happily.
“ Vibrator,” I blurted out, stupidly, without thinking. Oh, God, he must think I am a sex freak. I bet any moment he was going to be making an excuse to leave the conversation. Instead, I saw a speculative look come upon him.
“ Hmm,” He said, coolly. God, that was what I loved about this man, he was cool like a cucumber, even under pressure, even in the most uncertain of circumstances. I just wanted to kiss him for that. But deciding to be more lady-like, and showing my come-hither look, I decided to plough on. This would be my ‘ Do something scary everyday’, deed for the day.
“ I didn’t mean to just blurt it out, but I know you are an engineer. I have been having some trouble with my vibrator recently. I mean, recently isn’t the right word for it, because I just bought the damn thing. And its already acting up.” Realizing, this sounded like I used a vibrator so much that it broke down, I hurried to amend that. “ Not that I have even had a chance to use it that much, maybe once or twice. And the second time, I used it, it actually emitted a loud pitched noise, when in fact its supposed to be noiseless, and broke down. And no matter what I do, I can’t fix it. Now, I now what you are thinking. You are thinking, why don’t I just return the damn thing to the damn place where I got it. Well, here’s the problem. I got it as a birthday present for myself when I was stupendously drunk. I had the courage to go into the sex shop and get a vibrator when I was drunk, but now that I am sober, I wouldn’t dare step back into that store. And ask them for a refund or even worse, another vibrator. And I don’t know anyone else who’s good with electronics like you are. So I was hoping…” I said, tired of talking and absolutely exhausted from my scary thing for the day. Why do I expose myself to such ridicule, I thought to myself? Whatever, so what I lose another acquaintance because of my runaway tongue and inability to keep my mouth shut.
No big deal. I thought, knowing it was a big deal. A very big deal, if I lose my friendship with Jake.
Jake looked at me again, wondering if I was going to start speaking again, and when he was sure, I was done, he started, “ No worries, I’ll take a look at it for you. Just bring it by my house. Tomorrow night, alright?” He said, smiling.
I almost collapsed, my knees that were almost shaking from the stress, almost gave up on me. But I held my ground, and I said, “ Sure, that would be perfect.” Thinking to myself, that I am going to have to take something as a present to thank him, I walked to the kitchen to tell someone, anyone about what I just accomplished. I needed the world to know, what I had just done. I wanted to shout from the rooftops, the feat that I had just accomplished, but unfortunately, talking to Sam, my girlfriend, would have to be enough. And of course, my laptop journal.
For months, after I started journaling in my laptop, I agonized about what I should call my journal. I mean, it had to have a name. And not just a name, a really cool, hip name, that would announce to the world, before they even read my journal, that it was the journal of a cool, creative writer. Not that anyone would ever read my journal. Hopefully. I sometimes, I woke up in a sweat at night, because the night before, I had read of hackers, hacking into unknown computers, going through the documents, to discover something that they could use to make themselves loads of money.
I could just imagine a unscrupulous hacker, hacking into my precious laptop, through my crappy wireless connection, and having a moment of ‘Aha’.
He would think to himself, “ Yes! Finally, I have found eet!” I don’t know why in my imagination a hacker is almost always a French male. “ I have found a great journal of someone called Shelly and I shall read eet, and I shall make fun of eet. Ha!”
After reading through some of it, he would either realize that it was horrible stuff, and he would quickly leave my computer as quickly as he entered it, or depending on my mood that day, I would think that he would love the stuff, and would download all of it into his hard drive, selling it to some great publisher as his own work. One day, I would be walking through my favorite bookstore’s aisles, and I would see a journal, and I would open it, and I would see my stories, printed in someone else’s name.
Also for months, I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. I would disappear for hours in my room, typing away like a ferret. Hunched over into myself, I would type, careful that no one in the world know what I was doing, so that they don’t have the opportunity to make fun of me, and bring down my dream of being a writer. I could do that well enough on my own, thank you very much.
Then one day, I was sitting in a Starbucks by my apartment, and I decided to just sit there, among the violin music and the chatter to journal a bit. The atmosphere was very pleasing to me. There was a like minded fellow, sitting and reading a book, drinking his non-fat latte. I heard him order. And there was a mother and daughter, dressed alike, blondes in sleeveless tees and white capris, drinking lemonade.
And there was the violin music playing in the background, which really made me happy and made me want to write.
Sitting there, at peace with the world for a few seconds, I typed away furiously on my laptop, writing 3 pages in an hour. Then, I saw it, horror of horrors, Jake was walking towards the Starbucks with a few friends of his.
What should I tell him? the problem with me and him is that I can never lie to him. I look into his blue, blue oceans of eyes, and I just fall deeper and deeper into his spell. I just can’t help myself. I lose myself in his beauty and I just find myself confessing to all sorts of crimes, that I might not even have committed.
I decided to hide out in the bathroom, until he left. As I was packing up my laptop as discreetly as possible but as quickly as possible as well, I looked up and saw Jake looking at me.
Eek, I thought, now my secret is out, after 4 months of protecting it. Oh, well, it was a good run while it lasted.
He walked towards me, smiling. “ What are you doing here, all by your lonesome self? You should have asked me, I would have given you some company.”
“ Oh, nothing really.” I thought to myself, control yourself, control your tongue, don’t say the journal word. It just slipped out, I swear to God.
“ Actually, I was journaling in my laptop. I have been doing it for 4 months and I just liked the atmosphere here. It really got my juices flowing.” I said, there, I have said it. its out, my secret’s out. I want to be a writer too, like everyone else on the planet.
“ Wow, really. I never knew you wanted to write. Its amazing, I have always thought you have a really great way of putting things together. Like, when you tell stories, you always tell it in a way that’s much more interesting than anyone else, I know.”
That was it, that was my moment. After that, Jake and I chatted for a few more moments, and then he left, but I don’t remember a word of what was said.
I was in heaven. Jake, my idol, my secret love, thinks I can be a great writer. That was all the confirmation I needed from the universe. I knew then, that I was meant to be a writer, no more confirmation needed, I told the heavens above. This was the greatest confirmation you could have given me. I danced and skipped all the way home from the Starbucks. That was one day, that not even my family could have bought me down from the high that I was in. And believe me, my family is really good at doing that.
I was thinking that you know how people make pacts that they will get married to each other if they don’t get married by their 30s, I was talking to my girl friend that likes brown men, that if we are not married by our 30s, we will go to India, and find ourselves some brown men. It will be our Indian way of doing the same pact. I thought it was a hilarious joke I made, but I got a little worried when she started taking it seriously and making plans for it.
