Laurence: could you send me anything?
Emma: ermmm, hang on…
I’m in the middle of feeling a bit judgemental and superior, when something awful happens… Just as I’m about to send him a song Mum screams something about a missing eye-shadow, which I know is at the bottom of my handbag. I turn from the screen and call back that I have no idea where it is. I turn back and click ‘paste’ but instead of pasting ‘How You Remind Me’ into the conversation, I end up pasting the last thing I copied.
The enlarged picture of his head.
I sit for a second in utter disbelief.
‘No. No. No. No. No. No. NO NO NO!!! Cancel! CANCEL!!!’
Laurence: whats that?
Emma: that… that is a picture of you
Laurence: ok
Think of an excuse!! Think of an excuse!! Oh God… there IS no excuse! What excuse could I POSSIBLY have?!
Emma: I was just zooming in to see your teeth, I noticed before you have very nice teeth
There is a long pause.
In fact, that’s sort of why I added you, I was wondering if I could have the name of your dentist
Laurence: er, I don’t know her name
Emma: oh well. Ok
Laurence: ok
Oh my God, just STOP TALKING.
Emma: got to dash Got to dash?
Laurence: ok. Bye
Emma: byeeeee ☺
Yes, the smiley face at the end makes everything better. Much less scary.
Well, after that I may have ruled out Laurence Myer as a potential case study. URGH. Now I feel worse than I did before. Just when I thought my self-confidence couldn’t sink any lower, I fail to get a date with a Nickelback fan.
posted by EditingEmma 22.04
Oh God. If I can’t even speak normally online, what hope do I have in real life?! All physical awkwardness (like how long you’re supposed to make eye contact without coming off as a psychopath) has been removed AND you get as much time as you need to think of a witty response. Even if you wait like ten minutes or something you can just pretend you were ‘getting a cup of tea’ and not frantically trying to sound clever. And it’s not even like I was that anxious. That idiotic interaction is me at my most relaxed and most likely to come off as a real person.
No wonder Leon isn’t speaking to me. I wouldn’t speak to me either.
Going to bed. At ten. What is my life?
posted by EditingEmma 22.38
I can’t even sleep. Mum is snoring in the next room. Usually, I would make a loud noise to wake her up then pretend it was her ‘night terrors’ but I can’t be bothered. I don’t even have the energy to cry any more. I’m exhausted, all the time. I never stop thinking about Leon. He never stops being there. One time I made myself stop thinking about him for a week or so. That was exhausting in itself. And then I fell asleep from the exertion and just dreamed about him all night anyway.
posted by EditingEmma 18.52
Today I got to work on resolution 1B (stop isolating myself) and walked round to Faith’s. I was quite afraid of leaving the house and lingered in the corridor for twelve minutes until Mum pushed me outside and locked the door. I’d forgotten what our street looked like. My irises felt quite assaulted by the amount of natural brightness, and I was feeling exceptionally beaten down by the time I rang the doorbell.
Faith’s mum answered, dressed in an apron that said, ‘My Husband Wears The Pants. I Just Tell Him Which Ones To Wear’. I couldn’t help but think that my mum would have doused it in petrol and thrown it, with its frills and questionable presentation of gender roles, on a bonfire.
‘Hi, Emma,’ she said, tentatively, as if I might start crying at any moment. (Did she see the status, too?)
‘Hi, Lillian.’
‘Faith’s upstairs, painting.’ She smiled.
When I came into her room, Faith’s blonde curls were covered in flecks of purple and red. She was wearing a long, blue shirt, also caked in paint, and she was, very earnestly, decorating her wall with a giant flower.
‘Hello, Georgia O’Keeffe,’ I said.
For a moment she said nothing, and then, ‘Thank you, Emma.’
‘Thank you for what?’
‘Georgia O’Keeffe painted flowers – though only about 10 per cent of her work was actually flowers, you know – and was plagued by accusations that they were vaginas. She insisted time and time again that they weren’t. I try to paint an expression of my sexuality; a giant, purple and red flower-vagina, in the middle of my wall, and my mother comes in and says, “What a pretty flower, Faith.”’
It looks like I’m not the only one who’s been too isolated this summer.
‘I’m not sure “pretty” is the word I’d use. It’s a bit of a monster,’ I remarked.
She put down her brush, then, and looked at me. I looked at her. We both looked at the flower and burst out laughing.
Reasons That Faith is One of the Best Humans I Know
| 1) | She hardly ever moans, and keeps her bad moods to herself, usually channelling them into something creative. I have no idea how. Imagine having a feeling and not examining it over and over until you’ve turned it completely inside out and bored your friends stiff with it. |
| 2) | Despite her parents not accepting her being gay (granted, she hasn’t definitively told them yet), she is one of the most accepting people I’ve ever met. |
| 3) | She has a strong moral compass. (Something I’m still developing. But as my teacher in Year 1 told me when I was trying and failing to tie my shoelaces, we all develop at different rates and that’s OK.) |
| 4) | She’s a peacekeeper. There have been many times when I’ve wanted to throttle Gracie, or Gracie’s wanted to throttle me, and the only reason we’re both still alive is Faith’s soothing, balmy presence. |
| 5) | She gives really good advice, which is probably a result of reasons 1–4. I hardly ever listen to it, but it’s reassuring to know it’s there. |
I spent the entire afternoon lying on Faith’s bed looking at Elle and Marie Claire galleries on her computer whilst she painted. I told her about my plan and she said, ‘Are you sure you’re ready to date? You’ve cried three times since you got here.’
See. Solid advice, reliably ignored.
posted by EditingEmma 20.01
A Further Reminder of My Sadness