Aspirations

As a small child, I had clear goals about the things I would do when I grew up: I would draw on the walls; I would eat brownie mix without cooking it; I would stay up all night until morning reading books; I would not clean my room.

Perhaps I should have put a bit more thought into the question of what it means to be an adult; nevertheless, I've stepped into a half-eaten bowl of brownie mix on the floor of my bedroom (the walls of which are painted in patterns to match the rug) at 5 a.m. while trying to navigate my way down to the kitchen for another cup of coffee without putting my book down. I am living proof that dreams do come true.

When I got older, I knew not only what I was going to do, but what sort of person I was going to be while I was going to be while I was doing it: tough, self-sufficient, witty, cynical -- a little dangerous, maybe. My lifestyle, naturally, would include cigarettes and coffee and alcohol -- the glamour of self-destructivity.

I would have intellectual, artsy friends, some of whom would probably die tragically young. Writing their eulogies would be cathartic; I would do a splendid job of delivering them. I would not be happy, exactly -- happiness is an aspiration for cheerleaders, and I was no fucking cheerleader -- but I would be interesting. I would not be likable, exactly, but I would be quotable, which seemed preferable.

"I like to have a martini

Two the the very most --

After three, I'm under the table,

After four, I'm under my host."

Dorothy Parker cursed and drank and smoked and fucked; in a review of Emily Post's etiquette manual for The New Yorker, she concluded that following its precepts would inevitably render one exquisitely dull. She wrote. She was smart. She attempted suicide on multiple occasions and then published jokes about it. My aspirations, as a teen-ager, centered vaguely on emulating her example.

My internal narrator watched, amused; she had an acerbic wit, most often directed at me. At every turn, she made it clear that while I might manage to fuck up my life, I lacked whatever essential characteristic might have made it glamorous; I was simply absurd.

(She was the kind of girl who preferred to use the handicapped stall when vomiting in public restrooms; she saw this as an expression of her inner wilder nature. Wide open spaces simply appealed to her.)