In Mid Sentence

(those who are not five years old may wish to stop reading now)

Much like the famed I had my tonsils out! incident, on New Year's Eve, someone asked what the make believe land on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was.

I answered that it was the Land of Make Believe.

No, no, everyone said. It was something else.

No, I'm sure! I yelled. That's why Lady Elaine Fairchild is the name of my--

here I gestured wildly in the direction of the house. Apparently the words "dress form" had fallen out of my champagne-addled brain.

--thing!

My friend Jason stared at me in disbelief. Your thing is named Lady Elaine Fairchild?!

Why, yes. Yes, it is.

Resistance is Futile--Woo Child

I'm brain dead today, so please accept these pictures of me at awkward ages, for your enjoyment. My dad brought them with him to show my school kids, so now they know what I looked like with braces, mini-boobs and bad hair. Yes!



I am 11 in this picture, and the rabbit with me is 3 ft tall. I won it in a raffle at the grocery store. I would also like to note that the strange green "numbers" sweater I am wearing was my absolute favorite and I wore it with green stonewashed jeans. And although I look stoned in this picture, really I've probably just eaten all of the rabbit's tail and am sugared out. Also, nice bangs.




I am 9 in this picture, rocking the bra-less look. (Lest anyone think I was kidding about my tales of young-boob-horror.) In addition, that is my string of fish. We cut the head off the biggest one and nailed it to the telephone pole outside our house. I don't know why! My dad told me to! Perhaps to intimidate the neighbors?

30 Years of Humiliation

And now for the moment we've all been waiting for...






I would just like to say that my husband, family and friends are more than any girl could ask for. I am filled with chocolate cake and my new iPod (thank you, Thomas!) is filled with songs. Hooray for 30! If I'd known it was going to be this good, I'd have done it a long time ago.

Odds and Ends

So, I want to blog, but not much of note has been happening.

Today is the start of Free Comic Book Day (Weekend) at Fanboy, so Thomas has been absent and/or frazzled all week. I've been lazy. I re-read A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel and remembered how very much I like it. I rejoiced that Beat Box Blake was not kicked off of Idol. I drank some wine.

I went back into my old archives and discovered that some old IHOKians did, in fact, come to find me, but that I never noticed as it was last July. I've unearthed some old pictures of some of these people and have been reminiscing, but only with myself, as I have no way of getting in touch with these fine people.

Gina posted a prom retrospective prompting me to want to write about the prom, but I'm saving most of my crazy prom pictures for my birthday next month. But here are some funny ones, just to tide you over.





Please note my perm (top) and recent baldness (bottom).

All in all, I went to 7 formal dances at my high school and although they were as horrifying as formal dances can be expected to be, I would still go to one now. There's a great element of camp, and also I like to dress up and then make fun of myself later. Thomas and I started dating when my friend Michelle held an 80's prom for her birthday (5 years ago this weekend, incidentally). I still like to tell people that Thomas asked me to the prom.



I loved shopping for that hideous dress. I had my mom fed ex me my crimping iron. Thomas got me a corsage so big it actually dwarfed my boob. It was awesome.

Items of Interest

Yesterday at the grocery store, I knocked over a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. It exploded all over my shoes. I squish-squished Mountain Dew all the way home and now I don't know how to clean my shoes. Do you think I should just put them in the washing machine? I had to wear new shoes to work today and now I am blistery.

I am preparing questions for those requesting interviews, but you guys need to make sure I have an email address to mail them to. Please use my "contact me" address to send your current email. Even if you think I have it. Cause I don't. I'm trouble like that.

Thomas and I went with Kathy to see this awesome Korean monster movie called The Host. They got me to agree to come along by describing it as a cross between The Royal Tennenbaums and Godzilla. Somehow I misunderstood that to mean that it was The Royal Tennenbaums, with super-special crazy re-dubbing, and was kind of dissapointed to learn that it was not, but I should not have worried. It was great fun: funny and with really remarkably good CGI. Highly recommended.

Hoo-Rah! It's my Blogiversary!!

Ok, so I just made horrible montages of pictures of me from 1980 to the present. But I think I've decided that they are better saved for my 30th birthday, which is in a scant two months, and will be, more properly, a celebration of the 30 humiliating years of my life.

But, Fear Not. I will, today, provide you with evidence of the child prodigy who would later create this blog. Or else I will post some really, really embarrassing poetry from when I was 17.


However, first, some thanks to those of you who have kept me blogging, lo these 12 long months. Thanks first to my MFA peeps, who got me started on this thing and who keep reading, even when I am a slack-ass fool: Cue, Pen and M, Kim, Tom, Ashley, HAT, Duck, Growler, Eli, and Daisy. And thanks to the real-life blogging friends I've picked up along the way: Slater and JoshUA, that's you.

Huge, mindblowing, fireworks-like thanks to Velocibadgergirl, Gina, Lauren and Amanda, who read even though they don't know me from Adam. That makes all the difference in the world.

Whew! That was a lot of linkage. Thanks to my lurkers, who I know are out there but who never say hi and please feel free to chime in anytime. I know you will want to berate me for what I'm about to share with you.

Early works of literary genius (elementary school):
All punctuation and spelling left intact.

City and Onion (essay)

A city and an onion are alike because they probobly manufacture smelly pens and an onion smells. They are also alike because there is alot of traffic and when someone is run over everyone cries and when you peel onions you crie. There are citys of all sises and onions of all sises. Onions can be a reddish color and some signs in a city can be a reddish color. When onions are cut they can be stringy and maybe Italian people live in a city and eat spagetti.

Journal Entries

Today we were putting soup on my dog's food but it had jelled. I showed it to her and she backed away like it was an enemy. She sniffed it and ate up the jelled soup. Yuck!
***
In four days are chicks will hach. I cant wait!
***
Some chicks hached! They were supesd to hactch tomoro. I was surprised.
***
There are 4 more pages in my journal. I am excited!

A Story About One Time I Got Very Angry

When I lose my temper I end up huring sombody (probuly my sister).Once I was swinging on my swing, I was playing Traffic Jam. After you crash 3 times you get to swing and I did not even hit her one time and she said it was time for her turn. I felt like punching her. I walked away.

Surrender Pretender (poem) (interesting that I'm already employing line-breaks)

Surrender Pretender
I know you remember
that I'm not your maid I'm
your mother.
So do not shout and pout and shout,
or shouting back will wear my
voice out;
And how great it will be
when you Social Studee
and find out that
the world is free of slavery.
But 'till then I say--
Surrender Pretender!

Further staggering works (Middle School):

Poem

Its night and I am terified
I see a ghost that is 3 eyed
Help Help it is a scary sight
Oh no Oh no where is the
light?
My mom is coming what does
she want or is it another
ghostly haunt?
I'm very scared, worried,
confused.
Maybe the lights are all
defused.
I think I will lay and make
myself flat.
What!!--that ghost is only
my hat.

Journal Entry (apparent exercise in stream-of-conciousness)

We are now going on vacation. We will be in the car 6-7 hours. Yuck. We are at Ms. Jones house to give her the silver and the mink. Ali if you are reading this quit it. I am bringing Bomby his new baby and 2 of his old babys and Bop. I can't wait 'till school starts. I've gotten all new school stuff I'm glad. Mommy and Daddy just started the car. Im going to quit writing now We are in Penna. I can't wait till we get there. I just had a cheeseburger, chips and fries. I got to hear turn the radio up for that sweet sound. I adore that song. We were at Granma's for 10 minutes. We are not staying here we are going 2 tawanda I adore that name. The place was the pits. Mommy is laughing her head off. Now we are going to find something to eat. My favorite book is Anne of green gables. It is so, so good. Hi!! I don't know why I wrote hi. The dog is panting loudly. I miss Julie.

Diary Entries

Dear Diary,

I have had a fun day but I have a ton of homework. Poor Christy Mr. Patti called her sir. She doesn't look like a boy that much. Gosh.

Meg Wittig

Dear Diary,

Little Raven is sososososososososoossoossoosososos CUTE. He has a tantalizing smile. He is in my English class.

Meg

Heart (an unfinished story)

"Once upon a time" nope to fairy talish for this romance.

Love at its best remains undisturbed until the right circumstances take place. It is like Melissa and Steve. They knew each other since Mel was in third and Steve was in fourth grade. Mel is turned on by polite guys. This one seemed pretty polite--but nothing serious happened then. Years went by before they really thought 4 a minute about each other.
At the end of 4the grade, Mel decided that she liked Steve. I mean, just as a cute guy. But then it happened!!!

3 Way Tie, or Triple Knot (story with pictures!!)

Diary--
Danni, I saw him today.
--Eva

DIARY--
CUTE BOY ALERT
--RITA

Rita and Eva, picture perfect best friends. You could never separate them. They did everything together. They sang, danced, spent weekends and nights together the even rode their ten speeds together. Rita and Eva normally shared even their opinions. They used each other as motivation for things. They agreed on everything untill one subject--who got Danni.
It was a never ending argument causing hatred and hurt feelings. But it was Danni who had the problem. I'll show you what it was.



Yes Danni's problem was choosing. Two beautiful girls they adored him and they were his for the taking but whitch one-wich one should he pick.
"He likes me better" shouted Rita. "He does not he adores me and Im prettyer" said eva.
...
Mean while Danni was pondering over he problem Brains or looks brains or looks.



All right. Here's the part I've been really dreading. High school poetry. Feel the angst, baby. (All poems here were written following the same breakup. Thanks, Matthew!)

Stages

In the first few moments
there is nothing but stunned
disbelief;

It slowly fades into a sort of
endless agony
as one ponders the ramifications
of such an event;

People make light of it,
thinking that they are helping you
in some way,
Cheer up! Calm down!
(yeahmakeupyourmind)

And in the end it is acceptance.
The pain doesn't die, you just
become tolerant of it.
You live through it.
And you are never the same.


Lonely Time

There is a time, each day
Between seven and nine.
When living becomes a struggle...
When each breath seems to catch
in my throat.
When each tear seems to travel a mile before
dropping,
silently,
from the tip of my nose.
When my hands reach upward,
outward,
and find no one.
when it is too late
and too early
at the same time.


Immortality

And I can just recall
loving you on that 10 hour trip
Wishing almost, that the car
would
spin out
and crush our fragile mortality
crush my female belief that
love is forever
before we fell out of it
(You fell out of it)

Silence

I once knew a girl whose jet black hair provided her wiht a shield from the world, but not really. She loved with a ferocity that frightened the others, but she did not trust. To trust is to hand people the instrument with which to beat you, she reasoned. And so her love was silent, but not really. I once knew a boy, wholehearted in his belief that he could not love, but not really. He said that he watched his life from afar. I do not understand love, he reasoned, and I cannot accept what I do not understand. And so, he shunned feeling, but not always. And when they met, it was like a silence breaking. And when they kissed their carefully built walls came tumbling down. I love you she said, you have set me free. But in his mind he doubted, do I love? He questioned: What is love? And so he retreated, leaving her lost and without trust.



OH MY GOD, have you had enough? Can you even believe that I have a degree in Creative Writing? Can you believe I didn't beat up that guy? Aren't you glad you read the ramblings of the mind that produced all that?

Day 6: Shop Til U Drop

I shopped with my mother and sister in law today for 8 hours. 8 hours! That's, like, equal to a full day at work! Let me just say that my in-laws can shop. But that's what makes them the best for going to places like Rugged Warehouse and Goodwill--they are willing to inspect every single item of clothing in the store, which is necessary to a successful bargain hunt. I bought 7 shirts, a pair of shoes and a headband for 57 dollars. I really shouldn't have spent 57 dollars, but I am happy with my new wardrobe.

So, I'm planning for my blogiversary and I'm thinking about doing a humiliation retrospective: pictures of me in the sixth grade, horrifying poetry that I wrote in high school, etc. I want to do this; I'm just not sure I'm brave enough.

However, you know how many blogs have a tagline? I always think of my imaginary tagline as "Making fun of myself on a semi-daily basis." So I feel like it would be inkeeping with the mood around here to just all-out destroy any image you might have had of me as a relatively normal-looking, reasonably smart person.

Thoughts?

Naivete Springs Eternal

This post, over at the awesome bluishorange made me recollect again, with giggling and grimaces, how woefully ignorant I am on the subject of drugs.

Because, being 29 and mostly friends with artists, writers and other n'er-do-wells, I'm around people who are familiar with drugs of various kinds and legalities, and people usually assume that I, too, have experienced my fair share. Which would be totally wrong.

I'm often at a loss to try to explain how very, very inexperienced I am. But this story fairly well sums it up: When I was 18, I was hanging out with some kids from DC, going down to the Mall to see the fireworks. I grew up in Metro-area Maryland, so this was a pretty-near annual occurance.

If you've been to the Mall for the 4th of July, you know that in addition to some kick-ass fireworks, our Nation's capital also hosts the Great American Smokeout. When I was a kid I assumed that this was a group of people marching on Washington to abolish cigarette smoking.

So, here I am, laying on my blanket next to my way-cool friends. The fireworks are booming around us and I smell their familiar, pungent smell. I take a big sniff and sigh. "Don't fireworks smell weird?" I say to no one in particular.

Everyone looks at one another as if to decide who will get the glee of making fun of me for this. "Meg, that's pot," someone says.

Oh.

Curry is the New Black

Tonight I had a lovely dinner at Double Happiness, a new Chinese place in town. Pricey, but totally worth it, and nice to celebrate my friend Christa's birthday. I had a wonderfully rich and spicy chicken curry, a large portion of which is currently decorating my right boob.

Why?

Apparently, it is totally impossible for me to eat dinner in a restaurant without accessorizing with my food. There is a famous family photo of me, circa 1997, in a Japanese food restaurant. I'm wearing a heather gray shirt, except that, oops, my left boob is charcoal gray because I'm wearing the white sauce.

I swear that I do not do this at home.

Last night I cooked a true fall meal: butternut squash soup, pork tenderloin, asparagus, acorn squash and nests of carrot, onion and kale. It was yummy AND I did not trim my shirt with any portion of it. Which was miraculous, considering I had company and hence an audience.

I like to think that I was blessed with a larger than average rack in order to catch the food I was destined to spill, and therefore to protect my expensive shoes.

Past Humiliations Revisited

When Thomas and I moved into our first apartment together, I was so excited to show it to my parents that I took a whole bunch of boring pictures of every room before we went home to Maryland to visit.


They looked at all the boring pictures and oohed and aahed over everything, just as good parents should. It wasn't until later, when we had some of their friends in for dinner and I was showing the pictures that I noticed this:




Yeah. Those are the emergency kitchen condoms. Just in case.

It's OK, We Can Fast Forward Through the Sad Parts

I know that you all have been waiting all day, like, WHEN is Meg going to tell the story of the time she went on the blind date with hearing aid guy?

Well, relax, the time is now.

A good long time ago now, when I was newly single and sort of deeply confused about how to proceed, I agreed to go on a blind date with the nephew of a woman I worked with. He called me and we agreed to meet at Bennigans on a Friday night.

I arrived early, as I am wont to do, and was standing in the lobby looking for someone with blond hair and a goatee, wearing a white shirt. Shortly thereafter a small guy who looked freakishly like Lars Ulrich approached. I thought, that guy is much too young to be the person I am waiting for. Then he sort of turned and I saw that he had a large hearing aid in one ear and my heart sort of sank. Because it seemed to me that if someone was going to go on a blind date with me, it was totally going to be a guy with a great big hearing aid. Then he looked the other way to cross the street and I saw that he also had a big hearing aid in the other ear and I just knew that this was going to be the rest of my night.

Which, of course, it was. The guy introduced himself and we were led to a table, where, as I perused the menu, he told me in this sort of tough guy way about all the people he was going to give an ass-kicking and various other grievances about people that he had recently dated. I ate my meal politely, making small talk and trying to be friendly, yet non-committal. I paid my half of the check and felt relieved that dinner was over. He seemed to feel, as I did, that nothing worth persuing had taken place and we were walking toward our seperate cars in the parking lot. Suddenly, he said, "So what are we doing now?"

Now? I had no feeling up to that point that we would be doing ANYTHING now. I was planning to go home, get in bed and cry. But I felt like I should be nice to this person since he was related to someone I worked with. "Let's watch a movie," he said. "I just got a DVD player."

So, for Lord knows what reason, I agreed to return (in my own car, thank God) to his apartment to watch a movie. He showed me his fairly extensive DVD collection, told me to pick something and excused himself to go to the bathroom. I looked vaguely at his movies and picked out the recently re-released Exorcist. (Someone I'd had a crush on had been talking a lot about it, and I felt like if I had to be there, at least I could generate talking points for this other guy.) He kind of hemmed and hawed and finally said that he didn't know how to hook up the DVD player so why didn't we just watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory because that's his favorite movie.

Fine, I said. Willy Wonka it is.

"But," he said, "would you mind if we fast-forward through the sad parts?"

"The sad parts?"

"Yeah, you know. Like when Charlie isn't finding the ticket... and there's that song?"

Ok....

So as we're watching the movie sans sad parts, I'm strategically angling myself away from this guy on the couch and he's strategically angling himself toward me.

Finally he makes his move and kisses me. I'm polite but obviously not into it. He starts trying to feel me up as I'm backing away. I say, "Look, I just don't do this on a first date." He says, "What, are you some kind of freakish prude?"

Yes. I am in fact some kind of freakish prude.